


Take Down

by daroos



Category: Stargate SG-1, The Pretender
Genre: Clone Jack O'Neill - Freeform, Crossover, Gen, Mini!Jack, this was written in 2005
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-09-15
Packaged: 2018-04-21 00:42:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 25,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4808390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daroos/pseuds/daroos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mini!Jack comes to some grief when Jarod begins to investigate his 'parent's' deaths. As things have the habit of doing around Jon, things escalate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cuppa Joe

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in 2005 - as a result, it may not be as polished or narratively tight as you may be familiar with my other work. That said, you may not be familiar with narrative tightness in my other stuff, so enjoy at your own discretion.

Cuppa Joe – Would you like some stimulating conversation with that, Sir?  
\---

Jon sat at a table in a local coffee shop, sipping a large regular dark roast coffee, and reading the newspaper. His apartment - his place of residence - was no longer the home and sanctuary it had been to him, or rather his full-grown counterpart, so he had taken to coming to the small café down the street, and nursing a cup of coffee on weekends. Some evenings they even had live music. Besides, as idiotic as it was, it made him feel more adult, sitting inconspicuously in the corner drinking his strong coffee and reading the sports section.

Some five months ago, Jon Kemp had been Jack O’Neill, a full bird colonel in the United States Air Force, working for a massive, top-secret military project, whose sole purpose was exploration through a piece of alien technology discovered in the desert of Giza around the turn of the century. This piece of technology was known as the Stargate, and was a large ring capable of establishing a stable wormhole between itself and any of countless others stationed on various other worlds throughout this and other galaxies.

Through a mishap of fate, Jack O’Neill had ended up getting cloned by a tiny grey alien, one of the same species as the Roswell Greys, who thought his genetic code could help in their species’ battle with infertility. His clone, Jon, had been imprinted with all of his knowledge and experiences, but had not grown past the maturity of a fifteen or sixteen year old. He had been on the verge of death before another Asgard, as the Greys were called, stepped in and fixed the flaws in his genetic code. Still, Jon found himself a clone - unwanted and un-useful to the world, not to mention 16 years old - and so had decided to begin once more on his life, starting in high school. Since then he’d been busy maintaining his cover, living on the shoestring budget the Air Force provided him, and generally trying to enjoy his second shot.

Someone with a large presence was looming over his table, which caused him to fold down the top of the Sports section to examine this person who deemed it necessary to interrupt him in his rest and relaxation. The man was tall and on the lanky side of athletic. Dark hair, round glasses just a bit too small, giving him a ridiculous look, accompanied by a blue shirt, tie, and dark slacks. It wasn’t so much that the man was large - he was tall - but that his personality seemed to fill up the general vicinity, giving Jon the unsettling feeling he wasn’t entirely prepared for, or in control of what was about to happen.

“May I sit down?” The man asked politely. He had a few folders shoved under one arm, a cup of coffee in the other hand, and a polite, detached expression Jon remembered Daniel using on the slightly feral inhabitants of other planets countless times. So this guy thought he was feral, did he? Maybe someone from the Air Force had sent him.

“Depends. Who are you?” Jon asked boldly. Advantage of being a teenager - nobody expected him to be mature or polite. If someone got a straight sentence out of him they were glad for it.  
“Jarod Thomas. I’m with the State Department.” He responded as politely as his expression suggested he would. Jon shrugged and nodded towards the free seat. Deliberately, he folded his paper. If this guy planned on interrupting him, he better know he was displeased about it.

“May I ask the occasion?” Jon asked finally, sarcasm dripping. Mr. Thomas had settled in the chair, set his folders down, and pulled a coffee stirrer from his shirt pocket, which he used to stir his drink in a slow, steady figure eight.

“Actually, I was hoping you could help answer a few questions for me. Jonathan Kemp, am I correct?” The damned glasses. He couldn’t take this guy seriously. Jon nodded finally. “I’ve been assigned the task of looking into the death of your parents. Daisy and Thomas Kemp, if I’m not mistaken.”

Jon’s eyes narrowed nearly imperceptibly, and his nostrils flared slightly. Not a good line of questioning to be going into. The cover story they’d set up for him was as solid as it could be made. Birth certificate, social security, two dead parents and enough history to throw off most determined investigators. This guy might just be an honest employee of the country trying to tie up loose ends before the official investigation was closed, but he could also have been sent by the NID to suss him out or any other of a number of groups who could be intent on harming him or attempting to extract information.

“I don’t remember much. It was all a bit stressful.” He said quietly, finally.

“I understand,” Mr. Thomas said, genuinely sounding like he did, “but anything at all you could tell me would be helpful. We’re just trying to get some more detail to help flesh out the account. According to your file you were just a building away from the explosion when it happened.” Jon nodded, thinking furiously about looking deadpan or traumatized. Either would be acceptable. “Anything you can tell us about before or after would be helpful. Anything at all.”

“I don’t remember that much.” Jon spat furiously. His cover story said that he had been the child of a pair of negotiators working in the Middle East who had been killed in a bomb planted at a small restaurant in Tel Aviv. As morbid as it was, the remains had been so jumbled, they’d only been able to identify the dead by dental records and accounts of those in the surrounding area of those that had been near when the attack occurred. Except for conscientious government employees like Mr. Thomas, it was a good cover. Nobody would dispute that the couple reported near the café, and later reported missing, had been killed, and nobody argued with the state supporting their orphan. 

He was called back to the present situation as the fellow pressed the matter, “Perhaps you could go back over it with me. Tell me everything you remember from a little before the attack onward.”

“How about no.” Jon suggested, scathingly. “I gave my written account four months ago. Go read that again.” Thinking that perhaps this would be a good time to escape this line of questioning, and in fact this conversation, Jon stood and shoved the paper into his backpack.

“I’m sorry if this is a tough subject, Jon, but I’m just trying to get to the bottom of who set the explosives which killed your parents.”

“Yeah, well if it’s taken you guys this long, maybe you’re not going to find them. I have to go.” Jon took his coffee and left the café at a brisk walk.

Jarod steepled his fingers and rested his chin on them. There was something the kid was hiding. Something he didn’t want discovered. Maybe he had been coerced by some part of the government. His financial support had been threatened, perhaps. He turned his chair so its back was to the wall and he was facing the populous of the café and spread out some of his files. One of them was in fact a small red spiral bound notebook with various cutouts taped and glued into it. 

Three kids had been left without parents from the attack. Jon was the last he was investigating, trying to find some incriminating connection between the bombing and the Centre, which he had a hunch was involved somehow. He hadn’t yet found a reason, beyond their innate sadism and hunger for power, but he felt he was onto something with this last kid. He just didn’t react like the others had, not to mention the half-dozen files the Centre kept on him. The eyes looking out at him from the teenage visage were much older then the body suggested they could be. He made a note to look into financial supply and more background. Perhaps a psychological history.

\---

“Hey Daniel, this is your... nephew. I’m calling to tell you someone’s been asking about mom and dad, and I’m not real comfortable with that. Talk to you soon.”

Jon hung up the phone. Answering machine. Always so cryptic on the answering machine. Always cryptic on the phone, even. But Daniel would get back to him soon enough, if he wasn’t dead or captured by the Goua’uld, in which case someone else from the team would get the message when they got to his house to clean out and package things up.

Almost immediately he got a call back from a breathless Daniel. “Hey Jon, sorry. You called right as I got in. Doesn’t sound good.”

“No. Can you meet in a half hour? Maple Park by the swing sets.”

“Yeah, I guess. Sure. I’ll see you then.”

\---  
“He just doesn’t feel right.”

“I’ll get someone to look into it, I guess.” Daniel shrugged. This cloak and dagger business was entirely out of his league. He’d have to get Jack involved, though he understood why Jon hadn’t contacted his adult counterpart directly first. None of the old team had kept in contact with Jon except for him.

“I never saw any credentials, either. It was weird.”

“I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Yeah. Well.... if you don’t hear from me in a few weeks, avenge my death, okay?” Jon suggested, sarcastically.

“Sure Jon. I’ll put that in the record.”

\---

Jarod stared at the information he had accumulated. It was like chasing another Pretender. The facade of the story was completely set up. It was a few feet deep - the entire story - but after that there was just nothing. There was a doctor who swore Jon Kemp had been born in 1988 in Prague, and a few official documents insisting that Daisy and Thomas Kemp had traveled over the world working on various treaties and reform of governmental policies, but their names weren’t on any official documents from the time, and nobody officially involved could verify their presence let alone involvement.

Everything indicated that this kid had been made up, and his parents’ records faked, but for all he was worth, Jarod couldn’t come up with a reason someone would have done that. Someone of Jon’s age, even an escaped Pretender, would have had nowhere near the resources needed for such a vast cover for himself. And even odder, it appeared that as soon as the cover story was set up, he’d settled down to being a normal teenager, joining the debate team and hockey.

Another thing to reconcile was the Centre’s interest in the kid. They had five separate files, all alluding to something big - something important and potentially lucratively profitable - and all inexplicably linked to Jon and all created within the past six months. The Air Force looked like it was hiding something, as well. They had set up a supply of funds for Jon, but had tried to wipe out any trail back to them, and cut any and all connections.

His conclusions rounded out to that before last year, Jon Kemp hadn’t existed in the United States, or any of the European Union. Where the kid had been living before that? Who had he been? Jarod leaned back in his desk chair and fiddled contemplatively with a troll doll. 

\---  
“You’ve got mail” The computer informed Jarod some time later. He had nodded off to sleep with the troll doll (one with day-glo orange hair and a mischievous look) resting on his belly, leaned back in the rather too comfortable desk chair. He massaged the side of his left knee on which his weight had been resting, and clicked on the e-mail.

It was a message to a sweeper team in Colorado informing them to pick up their package. Considering his recent avenues of research, Jarod could postulate on what that package was. Slipping a few key things into his bag, he trotted downstairs and started up the black sedan he’d gotten for the purposes of this pretend. Jon would be home by now. It wasn’t particularly far from the coffee shop to the apartment he lived in. Jarod glanced out at the traffic, and spun the car into a u-turn.

Plans and backup plans spun through his mind as he drove the relatively short distance to the large block of apartments. When he arrived, a beige van was already parked outside with another dark sedan behind it. A bad feeling settled in his gut.

\---

Stupid goons. Stupid NID. GOD DAMNED ASGARD Jon was escorted outside of his apartment. They smashed his kitchen up, and ripped the drawers out of his dresser. He had just gotten everything properly set up and they had smashed up the place. Jack O’Neill, fully grown and matured, may have been able to deal with two or three of the goons with little trouble. They were large, they were strong, and they had guns. They didn’t have terribly much more going for them. But they were big, strong, and had guns. And Jon, though he went to the gym and was working on the tiny scrawny kid thing, was not large enough to deal with the five of them busting through his door and pinning him from five different directions in his living room with their pistols. So he did the logical thing, which he recalled his larger counterpart doing countless times on earth and alien planets. He surrendered.


	2. Team Work

Team Work – Do we have to?  
\---

Jarod waited outside the apartment. It would do little good to confront them in unfamiliar closed quarters. With a look of disgust, he pulled a holstered semi-automatic handgun from the glove compartment and placed himself in a strategic position between a couple of cars where he was partially screened by some bushes. Even with the best of luck, all he could do was give Jon a chance to escape. One man, even a Pretender, against a sweeper team had a good chance of escaping but little to no chance of actually defeating them without some serious backup. He hoped desperately that they hadn’t knocked the kid unconscious.

In under a minute, two sweepers strode out of the building taking point by the van. Another pair followed with Jon in between them looking thoroughly furious and a little knocked around. The fifth came out looking suspicious, rounding out their numbers.  
“State Department Hands where I can see them ” Jarod shouted in his most commanding, no-nonsense voice. True, the State Department would have no actual jurisdiction, and if he had been working for the government, he no doubt would have gotten in a good deal of trouble for his actions, but it was more the tone of voice that got them to turn . It was the voice he’d used on new recruits when they went through boot camp under his tender care, and the voice he used to break up fights as a high school teacher. The sweeper team stopped momentarily.

The three not directly holding onto Jon drew their own weapons and aimed them at the sound of his voice, one of them shouting something about official government business. But in that split second of indecision – that moment of pause in which they switched from one mode of thought to another – Jon took his chance, balling his fist and swinging it backwards with all the force he could manage, into the crotch of the sweeper on his right. Swinging to his left, he slammed his palm as hard as he could into his nose and made a break for it. 

Down the street, around the corner, somewhere, anywhere populated. Problem with the suburbs, was, they were the suburbs. A park would be the best bet this time of day. Jon pelted down the street, thinking very little on what had just happened. Gunshots behind him – shouts – run harder.

Looking statistically at handgun accuracy in the general population, it was once calculated that a normal citizen (even one who, perhaps shot on weekends or knew about guns) had a one in ten chance of hitting someone and wounding them from ten feet away. A law enforcement officer’s chance was upped to one in eight. Unbeknownst to one another, both Jon and Jarod counted on these statistics in their not-so-planned and completely un-orchestrated escape.

Jon nearly ran into the hood of a car which screeched to a halt in front of him. A voice which reminded him of his days in Special Forces training camp pulled him out of the haze of adrenaline-induced ‘flight’ response.

“Get in the car Hurry up ” A quick glance told him it was Mr. Thomas from the state department driving a black sedan and looking entirely stressed out about the situation they both found themselves in.

Having very little else to do (unless you count getting run over, captured, or shot by the mysterious quintet so intent upon causing him harm) he did so, diving into the passenger’s side front seat and dragging the door shut behind him. They sped off, still being pursued by the van and the other black sedan. Jarod reached into the glove compartment, where he shoved his handgun and shuffled through papers for a street map, which he shook out on top of Jon. In between glancing at the road and those still following them, he would take a quick scan of the road map of Colorado Springs, and make a few quick turns, or speed through a shortcut.

“Who the hell are you?” Jon asked a half-minute into their escape.  
“If we’re not dead or captured in an hour, I’ll explain everything.” Jarod promised, splitting attention between the street map and the road. They eventually lost their pursuers on a few quick turns the van couldn’t make.

“We have to leave the car someplace.” Jon told his rescuer as he noticed them slowing down at a gas station.

“I know. I have it covered.” He said calmly, getting out of the car and looking around the station. A redneck-looking mechanic strolled out of the garage labeled “Oil Change ” and “Tires ” and looked them up and down. “Liam, I need you to do that thing for me right now. Would it be too much trouble?” Mr. Thomas asked sounding slightly amused.

“You got the stuff?” Drugs? Jon thought to himself quickly. Weapons? What could this guy be into?

“I got the money here,” Jarod reached into his pants pocket and put three or four twenties in the man’s outstretched hand, “And the snacks are in the back.”

Jon turned to look in the back of the sedan. Sure enough, it wasn’t some sort of sick code. A box of Ho-Ho’s, a jumbo bag of potato chips, a six-pack of diet root beer and five packages of M&M’s lay behind the passenger’s seat. The hell?

“Looks good. Glad I could help.” Liam smiled widely and moved to the driver’s seat.

“Thanks again. I couldn’t have done this without you.” Looking in through the windshield, he announced, “Right Jon. This is our stop.”

Jon sat in the car thinking furiously. “You haven’t explained who you are yet.”

Smiling slightly, Jarod looked demurely at his watch, “I have…. Nineteen minutes. By that time things should have calmed down enough. But we have to keep moving.”

At least that’s something I can agree with, Jon thought, getting out of the car. Jarod swung his bag over his shoulder and waved to the mechanic who started the sedan and nosed it out of the station, heading left and speeding off with a whoop from the open window.

“Where’s he going?” Jon asked, deadpan.

“The airport. Parking that in the executive valet lot. $150 a day.” He said with satisfaction.

“And where are we going?”

“Bus station.”  
\---

Jon sat on a bus bound for who knows where with a guy claiming he was from the state department named Jarod Thomas who refused - in a maddeningly playful way - to tell him anything before his allotted hour was up.

“Where are we going?” Jon asked testily

Jarod glanced at him. As though he hadn’t thought of it, “Well I guess I should ask.” He got up and walked to the front of the half-full greyhound and conversed with the driver.

“Well?” Jon asked as he returned.

“Portland.”

“And why would we be doing that?” Was Jon’s scathing retort.

“First bus out of here. Besides, do you really want to stick around Colorado Springs with those guys after you?” Jarod asked good naturedly. He sat next to Jon and fished around in a pocket. “Gum?”

Gods, Jon thought to himself, another Jonas. Still, though this young body had never succumbed to its elder counterpart’s nicotine addiction, he still did tend towards an oral fetish, so he took the double mint gum and chewed it angrily. Jarod did the same, obliviously, happily chewing away.

“So-“

“Ah ah ah ” He held up a finger, chidingly, “two minutes twenty seconds.”

“Now look here Thomas, I don’t care who you’re working for or why you’re doing this, I have a right to know what’s going on and you’ll tell me right now or so help me...” Jon trailed off ominously. Without his instructions his hands had crept towards Thomas’s tie with the unconscious desire to strangle or shake him. Rescuer or not, it was no good being rescued if it was just to be taken by some other secretive government... guy.

“Well first thing, my name’s not Thomas.”

Why did he sound so damned amused? “So what is it then?”

“Just Jarod.” These weren’t the questions Jarod had expected. ‘Who were those guys’ or ‘why are people attacking me’ or simple blind panic he was expecting, but this rational approach to things - gathering all the information and working off of that to make decisions - was not at all what he was prepared for. Never one to let it show, though, Jarod shrugged.

“You don’t work for the State Department, do you.” Jon stated. 

“Well, not that they know of. That is, not in an official capacity.”

“The hell do you mean, not in an official capacity?”

“I was investigating the death of your parents. But they weren’t actually your parents, were they.” Jarod stated, looking out the window with interest.

“Who the hell are you? And why do you think my parents aren’t real?” Jon asked with the unique venom of teenagers.

“Look, there are men who are after you, correct?” Jarod asked matter of factly.

“Maybe.”

“The sweeper team dragging you out of your apartment was proof enough of that. You have a secret. Something I can’t find in official government files and something which you are perfectly happy to leave behind you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Jon stated resolutely. He didn’t like the way this conversation was moving.

“You didn’t exist until the end of last year.”

‘That’s more true then I want to consider,’ Jon thought to himself. “Now how would THAT be possible?” Jon asked putting all his fear of discovery and stress-induced anger into the sarcasm of the sentence.

“When I was a child, I was taken from my family. I was raised in a place called The Centre…”


	3. Learning Curve

Learning Curve – Some peoples’ are shorter  
\---

Somewhere past Salt Lake City Jon nodded off. Jarod had spun a long, drawn-out tail of intrigue and kidnaping which equaled the NID for sadism and pure immorality. He was a Pretender, he claimed; a person smart enough to play any role, take on any job, and pretend to be anybody. He could be a doctor or a security guard or a nuclear physicist just by flipping through a book about it or looking it up on the internet. 

He’d been kidnaped as a child and forced to ‘pretend’ various scenarios, finding solutions to supposedly impossible problems for clients. They would purchase the results of the simulations for massive sums of money. No wonder the man now felt no compunction about punishing them monetarily (as with the car he sent to the airport) after they’d so royally screwed him throughout his childhood. Though he had been vague on the details, somehow he’d escaped and gone on the run through the States, staying one Pretend ahead of his pursuers.

The reason he’d told Jon all this was he apparently thought Jon was a Pretender as well. The idea of it, of course, was ridiculous. There were people that were good at things – look at Carter for instance – but there was nobody who could do ANYTHING. Who could be… Anybody. 

This Centre place seemed possible enough, though. There had always been questionable material coming out of the Delaware area, and this sort of thing wasn’t unheard of. Think tanks prospered all over the world dealing with complex, often impossible sounding situations for high, high fees. It just never had occurred to him that some of the tank might be a pre-pubescent kid, coerced and prodded with psychological torture.

Jon had no memories of the Centre previously stalking him. Rather, he amended, he didn’t know of the Centre in particular to be stalking him. He had known he was being watched by the Air Force at least, but as he thought on it, it was entirely possible that other groups had been keeping tabs on him. He’d never felt the urge to disentangle the strings connecting the various people following him.

Jon had neither been here nor there when it came to being specific about his own knowledge of the Centre. On the one hand, this Jarod guy seemed to take everything he said as the truth. He had this intense innocence and this presupposition that everything would turn out a-okay, even if the situation was dire. So he had played this hand close to his chest and feigned trauma and ignorance, eventually allowing himself some sleep.

For his part, Jarod was staring out the window, having never seen this particular stretch of Utah, and later Oregon. It was quite pretty, and very dark for the most part. Throughout their conversation, Jon had kept a feral look – equal parts street kid, disillusioned teenager, and something else so much more experienced. The look alarmed Jarod on his deepest level, but also evoked sympathy. The kid had been betrayed – seriously betrayed – by someone. The government, his parents, his family, or someone he couldn’t guess, but Jon was not soon to trust anybody or anything he was told any time soon. He would play along. He would feign trust to attain safety, but he wouldn’t swan dive into a Pretend as Jarod so often found himself doing.

Jon was also a lot smarter then he tried to give off, and a lot more mature then he would ever admit to. He had left his home with no more then the clothes on his back with little more then a prosaic shrug and a muttered sentiment about finally having gotten the place in order. He didn’t seem particularly disturbed to be traveling with a strange older man who’d lied to him – in fact he seemed to take it more as an equal partnership then some sort of scenario where he was now under Jarod’s protection. They were both on the run from the same people, why not travel together, his attitude seemed to be.

Always having had a fondness for kids, Jarod had taken to this one in particular, if for no other reason then he was in trouble and in need. Even if he wasn’t a Pretender - as Jon continually insisted he wasn’t – he had some of the characteristics of one, and though he wasn’t nearly as innocent in the true ways of the world as Jarod had been upon his escape, he felt innate mother hen instincts rousing themselves. If nothing else, it would be continually interesting, traveling with Jon. They could always be engaged in verbal fencing matches, trying to find out the truth about one another, though Jarod would readily admit that there was nothing pertinent he had held back. It would be an exciting adventure.

\---

Jon woke some time later to find they had stopped at some Podunk little town in Oregon. Jarod was not in evidence, but as he got his bearings Jarod appeared through the doorway of the bus. “I’ve got snacks.” He stated simply. Most everyone else was asleep or looking morosely awake. Jarod, in contrast, appeared perky as he set down a box of nachos, beef jerky, a bag of Doritos, ice cream sandwiches and two large drinks. Jon shook his head in consternation. He hadn’t met someone who ate like that since Jonas. Or Teal’c now that he thought about it.

“I see.”

“I figured you’d wake up hungry.” He thrust a drink at Jon, who gave him a Look and took it. Ginger ale. He could have used a real beer, but he had a feeling this guy didn’t drink and wouldn’t likely take kindly to the idea of giving his ‘young’ charge liquor.

“Thanks.” The only protein in the whole mess of junk food was the beef jerky, which he commandeered for himself. How did this guy live like this? He couldn’t be healthy. They divided the spoils and returned to their seats as the bus driver returned and they resumed their journey. “Do you have a plan beyond holing up in Portland?”

“We all have plans.” Jarod replied pragmatically.

“Yes, but do YOU have one for US.”

“I can probably find a good place for you to go to ground. Beyond that, I’ll survive.”

Jon bumped his forehead onto the seat back in front of him in a show of frustrated annoyance. “That’s your plan?” He asked finally. “Stash me away some place and keep running?”

“I just want to help people. I can-“

“If these guys are ANYTHING like you say they are - like I think they are - they’re not going to stop hunting you, and me, until we’re theirs or dead and they own our bodies. You can’t keep running. You can’t keep thinking if you stay away long enough they’ll give up and go away. The fight has got to be taken to them. You have got to show them once and for all that they don’t have the power to control you or anybody else.”  
Jarod was staring at him incredulously, as though he’d perhaps grown a tail or a set of horns. Maybe this kid wasn’t a Pretender, but he was something else the Centre would consider just as valuable as him. “Maybe you don’t realize what you’re suggesting.”

“I know exactly what I’m suggesting. Hell, it won’t destroy them, and sure as you or I are still breathing, they’ll start up again, but you can send a message, more then pissing them off with parking fees.”

“You’re talking as though you’ve done this before.” Jarod suggested in an off-handed manner. Jon narrowed his eyes dangerously, giving a look that said ‘I could rip your throat out but you’re still alive’, but sat viciously silent. His thoughts drifted back to the last time he had been involved in taking out a dirty private sector operation. They’d almost killed Carter

The rest of the night passed frigidly, as Jon refused to talk more on anything, and Jarod mulled over everything that had been said searching for a clue to what this kid was.

Morning passed noon, and noon passed towards afternoon, before Portland came into view.

\---

“And you have a plan.” Jon insisted.

“Yes.”

“A good one.”

“Look, I know you’re not going to trust me, but for what it’s worth, I’m doing my best. I have a place we can go to ground in for a bit and beyond that...”

“I have to make a phone call.” Jon said finally. He didn’t like to get the SGC involved in things, but this was much too large for him to handle alone.

“That’s probably not a good idea right now. Contacting anybody could put them on the Centre’s radar.”

“They can handle it.” He stated confidently and struck off towards a convenient rank of pay phones across the road from the bus station.

Jarod shook his head. There was a point at which you couldn’t help people any more. Besides, he had his own phone call to make.

\---

“I need help.”

“Who is this?” Jack asked, rocking back in his desk chair. Paperwork was killing him. At this rate he’d need reading glasses.

“You.”

“Who?”

“Damn it, I’m serious.”

“Oh. Mini me.”

“Screw you O’Neill.”

“Hey, hey, you’re the one calling ME.” Jack protested.

“Look, some goons roughed me up yesterday morning. Almost shot me... I’m safe for the moment, I think, but I need you to start looking into some things and using those fantastic General Powers of yours to set whoever you can on them. You writing this down?”

“You haven’t given me anything yet.” Jack pointed out.

“Right. The Centre - a think tank out of Delaware area. Jarod Thomas supposedly working through the State Department. And I got a license plate off one of the vehicles...”

\---

Carter was coming. And Daniel and Teal’c. Flying in four hours from now. He would just have to call them and tell them where he ended up. Waves of relief washed over him. Even if they weren’t his team anymore, they were still a team, and having their aid coming made him feel as though perhaps everything would be all right.

Jarod walked up to him while he rested his head back on the privacy walls between the telephones. “You up for a walk?” He asked cheerily. Jon wondered if he had gotten any sleep in the past day.

“Sure.”

“How was the call?”

“Fine. Got some friends coming in. Shouldn’t have any trouble with me any longer.”

“Friends?” He asked, skeptical.

“Sorry, anything else is classified.” Jon held up a hand as though to keep Jarod from going any further.

“Come on, then.”

\---

When that guy said a walk, he meant a walk. It was almost dark by the time they arrived at their destination. Seven miles, Jon would have guessed. They were in a suburb of Portland on a little back street. Worse-for-the-wear houses sat one on top of the other with tiny sprouting gardens and ivy climbing up and around everything.

“Linda Linda, you there?” Jarod was peering over a slat fence just higher then his eye level, speaking in a carrying voice. A dog began barking. It sounded large.

The creak and slam of a door told Jon someone had heard them. “Yeah. I got your message. Glad you could come back. You said you brought a friend?” A slim blond woman opened the gate and stared at them both. “You boys hungry?” She asked finally.

“Absolutely starving.” Jarod confirmed, bending to give her a hug. “This is Jon. He’s been traveling with me for a bit now.”

“You always were a rover. Come on in then.” The yard was filled with mechanical junk strewn about in the form of things half-built or half taken apart - Jon couldn’t tell which. She led them to the back of a pair of front doors which both led into the yard. “Watch your step. I don’t know weather to kiss you or slap you for the Legos. I keep skewering myself on them. I’d swear they get up and walk around in the middle of the night.”

“I’m sure they’re not able to do that.” Jarod commented, completely straight. Linda made a face as though she were trying to decide if he was really serious or joking with her. Deciding on the latter, she shrugged, and opened her front door.

Jarod was obviously not one for moderation, Jon thought to himself. A plethora of brightly colored blocks, various types of Lego people, and all manner of bits and pieces from a dozen different varieties of the building block toys littered the front room. Space ships were piloted by pirates and knights jousted one another on a tropical island constructed of yellow and brown blocks and palm trees. Tiny plastic doubloons spread across a space fortress where a Hans Solo action figure battled a dragon and a bear.

In the middle of the chaos sat a seven year old, blond like his mother, and engrossed in waving a dinosaur at a misfit Barbie doll. 

“Todd, Uncle Jarod is here.” Linda said to him, staying well away from the chaos. 

Todd looked up and fairly flew at Jarod, chanting, “Uncle Jarod Uncle Jarod ”

“Hey, how ya been?” Jarod asked, sweeping him in a circle to rest on his hip.

Linda gave her son a meaningful look. “Thanks for the Legos.” He said obediently.

“Everyone should be able to build things.” Jarod replied seriously.

“That’s what I said, but momma-“

“Would you like something to drink?” Linda was talking to him. 

Jon looked at her, surprised to be noticed. “Yeah, that would be good.”

“What would you like? We have water.... Milk, OJ, Coke...”

“Some Orange Juice would be great, thanks.” He looked around the living room and kitchen while she got him a glass and filled it. Pictures of Todd prevailed, set on counter space in 99 cent frames and taped to the walls. There were old faded pictures of a family from the 30's that he assumed were her parents. In one corner there was a picture of Jarod in a flight suit. Linda held out the glass for him. “Thanks.”

“I’m Linda by the way.”

“Jon.” He held out his hand, which got a firm shake. “So how do you know Jarod anyway? He was kind of vague.”

“Oh, he used to fly with my husband in the Air Force. Mostly routine stuff, but when my husband died... I guess he had told Jarod to take care of us. Set us up and helped in the investigation. He was so sweet, and Todd just loved him.” She looked fondly at the pair, now engaged in using a small Lego catapult to launch space debris at a castle wall. “He’s so much a kid.”

“Yeah, I noticed.” Jon agreed, wryly. So he was in the Air Force eh? Or rather, he’d pretended to be in the Air Force. Idly he wondered if Jarod really could fly or if he just pretended on the ground. Where else had this guy gone? What had he done for the sake of covers? These folks seemed to have been completely taken in by his pretend, but there must have been others who weren’t so sure he was for real, right? Somebody couldn’t just move through the world, slipping into and out of lives. “Could I make a call?” He asked, realizing he’d been staring at a particular part of the wall for over minute.

“Is it long distance?”

“I got a calling card.”

“Sure, then. In the bedroom on the dresser. Dinner’s in ten.”

“Thanks.”


	4. Reinforcements

Reinforcements – Upsetting news 101  
\---

“Teal’c?”

“Indeed.”

“Why do they give you the phone, T?”

“Major Carter is driving while DanielJackson finds himself otherwise engaged.”

“Still got that motion sickness thing?”

“Indeed. I do not understand his desire to read whilst in transit.”

“You’d think he’d learn already.”

“Indeed.”

“Well.... Can you put on Carter?”

“Master Brae’tac once lectured me on the importance of keeping one’s mind on the task at hand so as not to be distracted in a fatal moment.”

“Carter can drive and talk on the ‘cell. Just put her on.”

There was a shuffling sound followed by a scuffle in which it sounded as though someone had dropped the phone under the seat.

“Jon?” Daniel sounded anxious and a little distracted.

“Hey Danny. Got your airsick bag?”

“I’m really not in the mood, Jack.” Daniel replied, sounding as though he meant it.

“Right. Well, we’ve stopped moving, looks like for the night. If you got something to write with I can get you the address.”

“Shoot.”

\---  
“You should be a chef.” Jarod complimented Linda, after having cleared a plate of pasta smothered in sauce and a large bowl of ice cream.

“Oh, quit it. You eat everything.”

“Too true.” He agreed, “But rarely do I enjoy it so much.” He said with a conspiratorial grin.

A knock sounded on the door. Jarod looked at the door, and then at Linda asking, “Are you expecting someone?”

“That’s for me.” Jon stood and opened the door. “Glad you found the place Carter.”

“We got a little lost outside of the airport.”

“Yeah. Always confusing.” Carter looked Jon up and down, and nodded as though satisfied.

“Can we come in?”

“Who is it?” Linda asked, sounding nervous.

\---

Teal’c, Carter and Daniel sat on Linda’s paisley couch looking rather put upon. Jon slouched in a folding chair. Todd had been put to bed some time earlier.

“I saw the records and I was sure that your husband had not been involved in illegal arms runs.”

Linda was in stress-induced tears in an overstuffed chair. “But you didn’t know him. How is that POSSIBLE? You knew about... He told you that...” Jarod handed her a handkerchief with which she dabbed the corners of her eyes.

“He hadn’t done anything illegal. He was being framed. You deserved the money from the government.”

“But you knew things ” She shouted at Jarod, rising furiously. She came up to his shoulders.

“I’m sorry if I upset you - if I lied to you - but it was the only way I could put things right.”

She slapped him. “Things will never be right. He’s dead.” She said frigidly and sat once more.

“Look, I’m real sorry if I got involved in the middle of things, but if you all don’t mind, we’re going to head out and you two can resolve things-“ Jon was cut off by Jarod.

“You can’t leave. It’s not safe. They’ll find you and try to take you again, or kill you this time, just to get back at me.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“I can’t let you.” He replied, rationally.

“I got help now. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“I can’t let your friends leave without a full understanding of what they would be getting themselves into.”

“You gotta hit these guys hard and fast. Running won’t fix it.”

“Perhaps you can say that, but I’ve been running from the Centre for four years now. They don’t give up, and they’re bigger then you could imagine.”

“Oh, I could imagine some pretty large stuff.” The NID, the Asgard, and the Ancients’ repository of knowledge came to mind.

“Perhaps, but I’ve been unable to do more then annoy them in my four years.”

“I’ll TAKE the risk.”

“I couldn’t let you do that.”

For the umpteenth time that day Jon wanted to reach around to his self-styled rescuer and shake him by the throat. Hard. Yeah, the guy didn’t know his PARTICULAR situation, and yeah, the guy wasn’t on the stable side of the sanity spectrum, but he still wanted to throttle him.

“If you walk out that door, they’re going to come after you again, and this time they won’t be nearly as nice as before.” Jarod stated calmly as Jon reached the threshold. 

“I’ll just have to deal with that, THEN, won’t I?” Jon replied meaningfully. “Since you’ve decided you won’t do anything about this ongoing threat.”

“There is a difference between can’t and won’t.”

Sarcastically, “Semantics never was my strong point, so I guess you’ll just have to sort that out for yourself.”

“You have resources.” The stress and cajoling that was put on the last word caused Jon to turn and look at Jarod. Dangerous desperation looked back at him. This was the look of a man who had nothing left in his life to work for but a cause. His mission was his life.

“Maybe.”

“You want a strike – a show of strength to convince the Centre to leave be. I want to take them out quick enough that the Triumvirate doesn’t have chance to build them back up. I want them to quit existing and I want them punished for everything they’ve done to so many families.”

“That’s a lot for one man to do. That’s a lot for two men to do.” Jon replied levelly.

“But it could be done. We could take down their power structures. We could deconstruct them from the inside out.” Jarod had gained a fanatical gleam in his eye through the exchange, completely ignoring the other people in the room looking at him as though he were insane. His gaze locked onto Jon’s, sucking him in with need and hope. Daniel had always looked at him like that while trying to convince him to save some stubborn alien race, or do some impossible deed for the sake of morality. It was something entirely different to have it leveled at him regarding taking down an international corporate empire.

“I’m obviously not the one you should be talking to about this. Just a kid, right?” Jon replied, completely serious – completely calm. Jarod smiled, slowly, like he knew something.


	5. Moving Out

Moving Out – Lets get this show on the road  
\---

“I’m very sorry for the loss of your husband.” Daniel was looking at the woman whose house they had barged into and thrown into chaos, and projecting sympathy and understanding.

She waved the handkerchief once or twice, but broke into a teary smile. “It’s been a few years, now.” Jon and Jarod were arguing with one another by the door, ignoring everyone else in the room. “It gets easier. You just never stop missing them.”

“I lost my wife four years ago. It’s hard.”

She simply nodded and fiddled with the hem of the handkerchief.

“Carter, we’ve reached an agreement.” Jon turned to Sam the tip of a smirk on his lips. She didn’t respond, but gave him a, ‘yes sir?’ look. “I’ll be staying with him for a bit. I’m going to need you guys to coordinate things with Jack and the Pentagon. The searches should have come through by tomorrow morning. I’m going to need you to help get things moving on the government’s end.” The best place for him to be – Jon reasoned – was with Jarod, making sure his plans went well with whatever SG1 came up with. The guy was smart enough to take care of himself, but it wouldn’t hurt for both of them to have a little backup. Besides, they would need detailed information on how the Centre worked if they hoped to eradicate it as completely as Jarod seemed intent on.

“What about you?” she asked finally, looking extremely displeased. He had dragged her all the way from Colorado Springs to meet with him for an hour and sent her back.

“We’re going to be coordinating things on this end. This is going to take some serious planning.”

“I’m not sure you’re the best person to be doing this.” Carter replied with a sharp look.

“Jack’s got to stay put for the most part. I need you guys working separately from us. Now that I know there’s a danger, I should be fine. I may be a bit rusty, but I’m still the best one for this sort of job.”

Reluctantly, “I’ll have to check in with him, you know.”

“I figured. You got a phone?” Jon asked, turning to Jarod. He shook his head no.

“Here.” Daniel tossed his cell to Jon, taking part in the conversation for the first time. “Just don’t mess with it too badly.”

“Okay, I’ll be seeing you guys then.” Jon escorted them outside.

“With your cooperation, I believe this can be accomplished.” Jarod added, sounding optimistic.

Teal’c turned, to pin Jon with an intense gaze. “Be watchful, my friend.” Jon nodded solemnly.

\---

Jared stared at the ceiling. Linda had surprised him by offering to let them stay with her that evening. Not that he was reluctant to stay there; he was just surprised she had oscillated so quickly to extremes.

Who was Jon to command respect from those people easily twice his age? How had he even come to know them? They were military - that was clear - though the wrestler-type in the bowler hat seemed out of place. 

Perhaps this kid really was a Pretender, or something like it, who’d been discovered by the government instead of the Centre. That would explain how he’d gotten the protection of the Air Force – how everything had been set up for him. What had happened to his real family, though? Had he been kidnapped too? If he freed the others just to have them dropped into the clutches of another questionable group, he would be no better then those at the Centre themselves.

One of the things he’d stipulated with Jon was more complete disclosure regarding pertinent information. He would make Jon see this was pertinent if it killed him. It was a simply fascinating case. A group of people such as he had never encountered. And even if this turned out to be a horrible misguided mistake, he would stick with planning the Centre’s downfall for two reasons. One, it was something he’d been working towards (along with his own personal redemption) for several years. Two, because these people comprised one of the larger mysteries he’d encountered in the past decade.

\---

“Why are we here?”

A trio of small girls in matching neon green slickers scampered in front of a willowy couple of indeterminate sex, chuckling over a plate of falafel and tabbouleh. An accordion warred for attention with a cello a half-block down. Jarod moved to stand in a snaking line of people under umbrellas.

“They have these things here called elephant ears. From what I understand-“ the line moved quicker then he expected and he broke off the sentence to pay for the large rounds of sugar-covered bread. He handed one to Jon. “From what I understand, its pizza dough which they fry in lard and cover in a mixture of sugar and spices. Quite delicious.” He ripped off a piece of the confection and ate it with evident pleasure.

“You make it sound so appetizing.” Jon commented, wrinkling his nose. The thing was basically a doughnut though, and tasted nearly as good. “You’re serious? We came all this way for food?”

“We gotta eat.” Jarod commented prosaically.

Coughing from cinnamon sugar he had accidentally snorted through his sinuses from Jarod’s use of one of his favorite sayings, he could only nod.

“Actually, I have a friend here who can take us farther up the coast to Seattle. I discovered it can be dangerous to fly. At least, when you’re not the one steering the plane.” 

“Who is this ‘friend’, exactly?”

Jarod strolled along the rows of stalls, ignoring Jon’s question. There were people selling food and drinks, potted plants, artwork, skin care products, and pottery. A pair of concert violinists played across the light rail tracks, and were momentarily drowned out as a train drew to a halt in front of them, and once more departed with more passengers.

They slowed as Jarod perused a booth with lamps made of old cans with designs melted into them. “I’ve heard,” he began idly, “that these are made of all recycled goods.” 

A middle-aged woman folded in the corner continued knitting as she answered. “Yes. The smaller ones are- Jarod?” She stuffed the knitting, needles and all into a nearby can and rose to greet him. “How are you? It’s been what - three years?”

“And two months, actually.”

“It’s good to see you.” She gave him a hug, which he looked rather uncomfortable about, but accepted. “How have you been? What have you been up to?”

“Oh, this and that.” he replied, casually. “Worked on the East Coast for a bit. Florida. Wandering the world. You know how it is. So how has business been?”

“Same as always. Some days you sell stuff, other days you don’t. What brings you here, then? You want a cup of something?”

“I’d love some tea if you have it.”

“Sure thing.”

“Actually, we’d been hoping to join you in getting to Seattle. I had a bit of car trouble, you see.”

“Sure, sure. We?” She asked, having disappeared into the back flap of her booth and returned with two mugs of tea.

“Tammy, this is Jon. Jon, Tammy. We’ve been traveling together for a bit now.”

“Yeah? You’re always picking up strays.” To Jon, “Pleasure to meet you.” Returning her attention to Jarod, “You didn’t come all the way out here just for a ride to Seattle. You could have taken the bus.”

The thing about Jarod was, Jon reflected, he had a certain quality that was invaluable in his line of work. You wanted to believe him. He had conviction in every one of his statements, and just looking at him you knew he wouldn’t lie to you. Even if that wasn’t in itself the truth.

He could spin stories and plans like spiders could spin webs. Everything would connect correctly. And it would work, even when the individual threads couldn’t see their purposes. He was a motivator and an instigator.

This woman, Tammy, apparently had connections (or knew people who had connections. Or people who knew people...) In the South African government, which was where a good deal of the Triumvirate was based. The rest was primarily in Hungary, Syria and Laos. And of course, Delaware, though it was sounding more and more like the Centre and the Triumvirate were two linked organizations as opposed to one massive conglomerate of evil.  
So they would be traveling to Seattle, and from there... Well he didn’t know, but he’d find out. Some things were going to get straightened out once they settled down to planning.

Aside from being packed into a van with a bunch of lamps, like he himself was one, the trip north was uneventful. She and Jarod conversed mostly on mundane matters of business, lamp-burning technique, and recent political events. This woman, like the others, seemed to have no idea that Jarod wasn’t what he appeared to be - that he had been lying to her - and she seemed perfectly satisfied with that.

Several hours later they were dropped off in an industrial part of town outside a warehouse which was chained shut.

“Are you serious?” Jon asked, looking it over.

“It’s much more comfortable inside. The forbidding atmosphere surrounding it allows it both to blend in with the surrounding environment and screen it from interest. It is both more rundown and harder to get into then any of the other buildings in this block, making it an unlikely target for squatters.”

“You’re serious.”

“Many of my lairs rely on similar principals.”

They picked the lock on the gate and entered the small yard surrounding it. Rusty rolls of chicken wire and piles of dirt were about all inside of it, if you didn’t count the muddy, bedraggled weeds.

True enough, the lair was more comfortable inside. Three leather couches squatted around a wooden table. Chalk boards mapped out a smaller room within the huge warehouse. A camp stove sat on piled crates, and a futon lay in one corner.

Jarod opened the valves for propane tanks under large umbrella-looking heaters such as were commonly used in outdoor shopping malls in the chillier months, and lit them up. Pez wrappers littered a desk with a computer set on it.

“I’ve got to get some of my contacts in motion. I’m probably going to be a while.” Jarod commented, sitting down at the computer and booting it up. It made some grinding noises, but blinked awake obediently.

“Wait, wait, wait. You have got some explaining to do. Like what the hell we’re going to do, and how we’re going to do it. Not that I haven’t been thinking about it, but you are the one with the master plan, if I’m not mistaken.” Jon leaned over the monitor to look at Jarod, now shorter then him while seated in his desk chair.

“I will. Once I get things started and mapped out. And that’s going to take me a few hours at least. You can take the bike and get some clothes. I know we left Colorado Springs in a hurry. There’s some money under the seat.”

“Bike?”

“It’s on the far side, by the back door. Just close up behind you - it can get pretty drafty in here.”

‘Bike. Huh. What the hell am I doing in Seattle with this nutjob?’ Jon asked himself. What he had been expecting, and what he got, were two very different things. In the far corner of the warehouse stood a sleek motorcycle, which, though an older model, would have made Carter proud at the care with which it had been kept. The keys were in the ignition.

“How do you know I can drive one of these things?” Jon called back to the chalk-board room.

“You can, can’t you?” Was the response.

“That wasn’t what I asked.” He got no other answer. Well, he could, and it wasn’t as though he was going to refuse a bike practically handed to him. Besides, he needed a change or five in underwear and socks.


	6. War Games

War Games – It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye  
\---

Jarod was fast – he would admit that. He couldn’t have been gone more then a couple hours, but the chalkboards creating the smaller ‘room’ within the warehouse were covered in writing and drawings, and he’d returned to the computer. Speakers and a camera had made their ways out of a box next to the desk, and were strategically positioned.

When Jon walked in, Jarod motioned him over to stand to one side of the monitor. He leaned his desk chair the other way, so the small camera would only see him. A slightly chunky image of a slick-dressed man in an expensive-looking office resolved on the monitor.

“Felson, hey I didn’t believe my secretary when she said she had you on the line. Your upgraded security systems have been working great, by the way.”

“Mr. Morgan.” He greeted cordially. “I’m glad to hear things have been working well. Actually, I called about some business connections.”

“Contacts? What can I do for you?”

“I’m working for a company now. Big business, you know?” He winked conspiratorially. Morgan chuckled as though he knew EXACTLY what sort of business Jarod was referring to. “We’re consolidating – looking at some big money transfers.”

“International or in house? I got people for either.”

“Both. And it needs to get clean, if you get my drift. We’re putting it into smaller personal accounts. I’m sure you can guess why.”

“Sure thing. Let me call some people. They’ll get back to you.”

“Great. Say hi to the guys for me, will you?”

“Sure thing.”

The screen went grey.

“Insinuation is such an interesting concept. It allows for people to fill in their own versions of things without any elaboration at all. For all I know Mr. Morgan is thinking of drugs, or an international sex industry, or dot com businesses.”

“Business Mogul, though?”

“Casinos, actually. Them and banks are used to the Centre’s volume of financial interests. They’re experienced in dealing with these sums of money, discreetly. Besides, he has a reputation to protect. He may play the books a little in his own casino, but he’ll always play nice out of house.”

Jon nodded slowly. His entire demeanor – speech patterns and body language – had changed when he took that call. A vestige of the inflections remained with him for a few sentences, but beyond that, he was once more Jarod. Just as the person who’d out-driven the Centre’s Sweeper teams and Jarod Thomas were two entirely different personalities, so were Felson and this Jarod. It almost reminded him of a Goua’uld, flicking from personality to personality like that, but in a more cooperative way. One minute the wheeler and dealer, the next a military mastermind, on to a friend or a sympathetic ear, or scientist and researcher. The personalities would rise from him through necessity.

“You say you have a plan. Let’s go over it so I know how I can help.” Jon suggested after his minute of thought.

“Of course.” Jarod picked up a long piece of chalk, gesturing with it like it were a pointer. “Attacking the Centre like we have discussed, presents a number of problems - notably, the scale of the organization, and its virulent ability to reconstruct itself from a relatively small number of component parts.”

“So what you’re saying is this impossible.”

“Nothing is impossible.” He chided lightly. A few years ago, Jon would have argued vehemently. Life had thrown him his share of curve balls, though, and this chance to give his life meaning once more was too much to give up on because of a few impossibilities. Besides, in the line of work he was familiar with, he’d gotten out of his fair share of impossible situations. His older counterpart had the ability to effect this mission through political pressure and military aid. He had the option to be on the front lines.

“There are concerns of the initial infiltration, and then there are the more long-term deconstruction and redirection of resources. The more long-term concerns should help to damp down any regeneration of their programs.” 

Jarod continued. “As far as immediate concerns upon infiltration, there will be a strike force to lock down the compound. I should be able to initiate the fire suppression systems remotely and lock down internal controls if Angelo can get back to me with some critical information. The building was built with remarkably ruthless fire suppression systems, as they were also intended to be used in the case of the breach of containment of biological agents. Air systems shut down and all exits are automatically locked. They’ll get warm, but no harm should come so long as we don’t leave them there for days. This should allow a more controlled processing of everything in there.”

“Wait, biological agents?”

“I’m getting the Regional Infectious Disease Authority involved. They should be able to deal with anything we find without too much trouble. Mr. Morgan will be draining out funds. I’m setting the workings in motion to freeze those that can’t be drained.”

“The Sub Levels are our other immediate problem. They have few to no internal controls. They’re a rabbit warren of rooms, laboratories and cells containing who knows what. The Charm,” he spat out the word, “of the SL’s is nobody quite knows what’s going on down there. There have never been steady or reliable records kept of experiments. Results come out and nobody quite knows how they came about, but people don’t ask questions either.”

“There are confirmed rumors of a nuclear reactor below it all, so we can’t do anything that will weaken the stability of the buildings or the levels themselves. I have friends in California with experience in these things. They should be able to shut down the rector if it’s still functional, and deal with any hot materials. I’m sure the Navy would have some experts on the subject as well.”

“On the not so immediate, but still pressing list-“ Jarod moved from in front of the boards covered in immediate concerns, names, places, and actions to be taken circled, underlined, and connected in an incomprehensible web, to the second wall of boards labeled aptly ‘not so immediate but still pressing’. “I’ve got recovery of personnel, dealing with any chemical or biological agents - we discussed that already - and recovery of materials and incriminating evidence that can be used as pressure in the long term to suppress reoccurrences of the Centre.”

“I’d like to put you in charge of personnel recovery. By this I’m talking about Pretenders, any scientists that are non-threats, prisoners, and any other victims of brutality. There are some people who are part of studies who genuinely want to be there. They aren’t who I need you finding.”

“There are a lot of kids down there. Angelo can help you sniff them all out, but they’ll need delicate handling. These are diagrams of the levels on file,” he pointed to maps labeled with small, neat writing, “and these are what I’ve extrapolated and gathered from blueprints. The last blueprints were from before 1967, though, so be warned. It’s not the safest assignment, by far, but you are potentially less threatening then other people who could get this assignment. That’s important with a lot of these people.”

“On the long term, the building has to be dealt with. Sold or reconditioned, are pretty much the options. After that, it’s simply processing of information and personnel. The sheer amount of information they’ve generated over the decades is staggering. It will be a long job.”

“So that’s your plan?” Jon looked at the black boards. The maps were his main concern. SG1 would be with him if he had anything to say about it. SG3 if it was the same people, too.

“It is.” He paused. “I must admit, I’m un-used to working with a collaborator. Do you have any suggestions?”

“Sure. Let me look things over. You’ll need an infiltration plan once we know who we’re going in with.”

“I’d appreciate your input.” He replied, genuine.

Jon turned to the blackboards before recalling, “I got food.”


	7. Nitty Gritty

Nitty Gritty - Busy as beavers  
\---

“Bitterness Receptors on the tongue are largely thought to have evolved to determine poisonous foodstuffs.” Jarod sniffed at his coffee as though it might have gotten poisoned before he began drinking it.

“Yeah?” Jon craned his neck to see around the chalkboard he had been memorizing.

“This coffee is unusually bitter.” Jarod concluded.

“What? Give me one.” He was given a cup, of which he took an experimental sip. 

“This is fine.” He took the lid off and sniffed. Pure dark roasted gold.

“Shouldn’t this have cream and sugar in it?” Jarod was looking into his own cup suspiciously.

“This is how it’s supposed to be. Pure and unadulterated.” He took another deep whiff, the headache which had been building between his eyebrows evaporating with it. “Black coffee is the only real stuff.”

“By black you refer to a lack of sweetener and mellowing due to lactose.” Jarod clarified.

Jon looked at his compatriot sideways. Sarcastically, “If that’s the way you want to put it.”

“Interesting.” Jarod nodded to himself, but continued drinking the coffee, though he made a face at every sip. Black coffee wasn’t everyone’s thing. It was lucky his team - his old team - hadn’t been pansies when it came to it though. Black coffee in the mornings and nobody complained.

Daniel’s phone began to ring with the Indiana Jones theme song. Jumping to rescue it from under a stack of papers, Jon knocked them onto the ground. “Heya.” He greeted.

“Hey Jon. 24 hour check in.” Daniel informed him.

“I like your ringer.” Jon supplied, wryly.

“Yeah. Look, we’re needing to know what sorts of plans you guys have in mind. What sorts of resources we should be setting people on, that sort of thing.”

“Sure. Jarod is going to send you over a copy of the information we have on the grounds. We’re going to need enough people to lock it down TIGHT. I mean nobody can get out of that place. I want SG1 and 9 on my back if possible for clearing out the lower levels. The upper levels are primarily scientists, but they have enough security for several private firms. I know this isn’t exactly an SGC mission, but Jarod had good information referring to genetic experimentation and cloning efforts.”

“They might have been involved in Hope’s creation.” Daniel murmured to himself.

“What?”  
“We discovered a Goa’uld/human hybrid created as a Harsisus substitute. She was flawed, though. She ended up killing herself to prevent the Goa’uld personality from taking over.”

“Sounds possible.”

“This should be good leverage to get the SGC involved.”

“It could end up room-to-room combat. I want experienced soldiers in there. Then I suppose we’ll need an area set up for processing. The local police can get involved for a wider perimeter...”

\---

“Your friend didn’t appear to have the knowledge of a military tactician that you yourself possess.” Jarod commented when he had closed his conversation with Daniel.

“Danny’s an archeologist and linguist.”

“And yet he’s employed by a top-secret military organization and is capable of acting as liaison between yourself and the military in manners like this.”

“He’s a very good linguist.”

“He even understands when you’re explaining something.” Jarod said quietly, amused. Jon glared, having caught a hint of his own sarcasm mirrored in his compatriot’s words.

“Whatever.” A stony silence ensued. “So it’s a bit of a distance between here and Delaware, if you hadn’t noticed.”

“Distance is all relative.”

“When were you planning on leaving?”

“I need to make a stop in Northern California, and one in Skokie... We’ll need a few days in Delaware. I’m thinking tomorrow first thing?”

“How are we going to cover that ground in time?”

“Flying. I assume you won’t mind.”

“You said flying was a bad idea.” Jon pointed out.

“IF, you’re not the one flying the plane.” Jarod specified. “I got a rental.”

 

\---

Davis straightened his dress uniform and smoothed a hand over it once more. The day was wet - wet, rainy and dreary. For once he appreciated the wool the uniform jackets were made of. This was his job - going and asking for things, demanding things, or negotiating for things - with people quite determined not to give anything up. That didn’t mean he got any particular pleasure from butting heads with top administrative brass. The part that made it worth while was getting good people what they needed to get their work done.

That week had been a marathon of meetings. First trip was to Area 51 to get their scientists to agree to take on the information sorting job which would result from this operation. Really, there weren’t many other people who could be given that job, considering the nature of some of the information no doubt stored in there. The NID could be given some access, but he personally would feel better - and the General had expressed that he too would sleep easier - if the NID was kept at least at arms length from this operation.

He was to be briefing the President in forty three minutes on the various aspects of this operation, and how it related to the SGC and continued off-world operations. If they could trace some of the informants, they could head off future leaks who would have lead to all sorts of other problems. It would make things simpler in the future, but right now, all he could focus on was the mammoth headache he was getting from the project.

He glanced over the list of resources they would still need to obtain, and then at another packet which was their timetable for the operation. When last he’d checked in with the General, he had sounded unusually irate. Communicating with his miniature counterpart wasn’t proving as easy as Davis had thought it might be.

Of course, it would be best if the President wasn’t told about the whole alien clone aspect of this operation. As far as official reports would say, the operation was being run by Colonel Carter and a select team of specialists overseen by General O’Neill. Anonymous tips were being quoted for most of the information, accompanied by a liberal sprinkling of official memos, scraps of relevant testimony from a half-dozen public and government court cases and information gleaned from NID interrogations.

His phone rang. “This is Davis.” He answered, glancing around the street in a wide sweep.

“Hi, this is Carter. I’m about to give a preliminary briefing to my teams. Do we have presidential support?” Carter asked. She was pacing outside the entrance to Cheyenne Mountain folders and papers tucked against her chest.

“Not yet. The meeting is in about a half hour. It’s a formality at this point. The civil defense department has already given the okay, and Area 51 has agreed to the resource devotion required for this project. The President has a vested interest in cleaning up government operations, especially with the past administration’s record of indiscretion.”

“What did Michaels say about the local law?”

“We’ve gotten their complete cooperation, but some of their administration isn’t happy about us pulling rank on them. They’ll be sniffing around, but I’m sure they’ll be dealt with.”

“All right. Anything else I need to know?”

“Simmons. He’s been demanding access to our project files. Saying it’s unauthorized spending. It shouldn’t affect the team operations, but it’s something else you’ll probably have to argue about in a few weeks.”

“The General won’t be happy.”

“The General isn’t one to suffer bureaucracy.”

Sam rolled her eyes in agreement, and made a hmm kind of noise. “No. I’ll tell him, then. I’ve got to go.”

“Of course.”

They hung up, Carter slipping the cell into her coat pocket. The travel of the past few days had not worn well on her. She was used to traveling through the gate - night turned to day and the skies above were always different, but for the most part, she was exploring - hiking through wilderness, discovering new civilizations, or being sucked into new technology, mostly in a figurative sense.

But this was being driven here, taking flights there, and organizing. She hated organizing almost as much as the General hated organizing. Not that she didn’t appreciate a well-produced plan, or appreciate the need for one, but the talking, the planning, the meeting, and the unrelenting compromising made her want to throttle herself.

Two of the four SG teams involved in their project were assembled in the conference room when she walked in. The junior members straightened up, but of the ten people, seven of them remained in various levels of slouch, the two commanders waving good-naturedly at their commanding officer. She smiled shyly and moved to set up her presentation. Thumb drive. Where was her thumb drive? If I were a thumb drive, where would I be? She asked herself. Left breast pocket.

SG 3 trooped in and settled, rifling through paperwork. If an SG team survived the first four months, they melded into one organism with four or five different parts. Even without any sort of mind control or psychic intervention, you got a feel if one of you was in trouble. This also seemed to extend to maintaining a unified front when it came to being early, late, or right on time for meetings.  
This left only SG 15 still to arrive. Sam fooled with the computer for a few minutes setting the projector up. In a great rush SG 15 swept in and took over the far corner of the room, displacing a disgruntled pair from SG 9.

“Well. Since you’re all here now,” Marquez and Adams looked suitably chastised. Carter smiled, and straightened up, telescoping a pointer out. “We can get down to business.”


	8. Flying Lessons

Flying Lessons - Crashing would be a bad idea then?  
\---

They took off out of an airport about and hour outside of the city. It had the fresh green scent of the area, overlaid by gasoline, exhaust, and rubber. Jon inhaled deeply, having missed the distinct aroma. There's not a lot of flying an emancipated minor without a licence can get, unless it’s in the back of a 200 seat airbus.

Jarod appeared not to notice his companion’s enjoyment of the surroundings, instead focusing on the contract agreement he’d been handed upon arriving at the small control center. They would, the contract said when translated from legaleese, have rights to a four-seater twin engine aircraft as parked in lot 49C of the airport’s private tarmac. They would be responsible for all takeoff and landing procedure arrangement, all gasoline beyond that already within the craft, any service it may require, and of course, the return of said aircraft to this airport, or any of another few as listed on the following sheet (2l).

He had signed the paperwork without looking over it - his usual course of action when one considered he usually wasn’t around long enough to have to deal with any repercussions in relation to any of his escapades - but always had found the legal way of putting things to be fascinating. It came from the period of time in which he had been Pretending a lawyer. So many interesting, obscure laws and loopholes.

That particular airplane had been chosen for three particular features. There was enough room for one of them to lay out in the back, it had large enough gas tanks to keep refueling’s to a minimum on their longer flights, and didn’t have anything approximating cruise control. She was a bird who needed a constant hand on the controls.

These requirements meant that she wasn’t the newest plane to hit the skys, nor the prettiest. Jon kicked on of her tires, “You’re actually going up in this thing?” He asked, eloquently. Jack had always been against questionable equipment. Questionable equipment most often ended up with him in the infirmary, or having to do something incredibly stupid to save one of his team. Jon had decided to prescribe to a similar mode of thought on the matter.

“We,” Jarod began, emphasizing the word, “are going up in this thing. And I’m sure it’s quite safe. This model is known for its longevity and reliability over long distance flights.” He assured Jon, unlocking the cockpit and throwing his sack and jacket (onto which he carefully placed his briefcase) into the back seats. “Could you get the wheel blocks?” Jarod asked, throwing Jon the keys.

Jon caught them and moved to do so, muttering something about abuse of the youth. One of the locks stuck, but a swift kick cured that, and added a bruised foot to the list of complaints Jon had regarding this particular plan of his new cohort. Well, if truth be told, it did look like a solid little plane, if more low-tech than anything he’d flown for... longer then he would admit. Air Force spoiled you in some ways and had you live in abject poverty in others.

He moved the blocks clear of the wheels and walked a circuit of the plane. Nothing falling off or out. He would have liked to take a look at the engine, but Jarod was engaged in doing just that at the moment so he would have to trust him.

Jarod finished what he was doing and clambered into the cockpit, dragging the un-oiled door closed. Jon followed him, stuffing his carry sack under the seat. A headset was dropped into his lap, Jarod already wearing his. The front was set up in a pilot/co-pilot configuration, with Jon in the co-pilot’s chair. Jarod was going through the pre-flight check. The flaps grated in an alarming way, but after the first extension, retracted silently. Jarod spoke confidently into the mouthpiece, confirming flight plans and takeoff orders.

He seemed to know how to do this. In one desperate moment, as they taxied about, turning to the runway, Jon wondered if Jarod had ever done this - this flying small aircraft thing. They made it off the ground before Jon had the nerve to ask.

“Yeah. Nearly was killed. Crashed.” Jarod commented, with a shrug.

“You CRASHED?” Jon shrilled, losing his composure.

“Only a little.”

“You don’t crash ‘only a little’. You either crash, or you don’t!”

Jarod shrugged again, as though almost dying in a small craft crash was no big deal. He took off his headset and unbuckled his seatbelt, doing a sort of wriggle to squeeze through the distance between the two front seats, and over the control panels.

Jon grabbed his ankle in a death grip. “Where are you going?” He shouted, as they could no longer communicate via the very handy system of headsets.

Jarod shouted something back, which was most likely, “Getting some sleep.”

“And what do you expect - me to fly this tub?” He yelled back.

Jarod nodded and gave him a thumbs up, shaking free of Jon’s ankle deathgrip and wriggling into the back of the plane in one movement.

Jon had a second in which to sit in fury before the plane to a bit of a dip and a skip to the right, having hit a bit of shear in gaining altitude. He took a firm grip of the controls, continuing the ascent after correcting the pitch. They’d be having a very serious little talk, he and Jarod, but until then, the practical part of his mind said, there was little to do but enjoy the flight. It was far from the high-performance vehicles he’d gotten used to in his earlier days, but in the past few years he hadn’t gotten to fly much of anything, excepting a death-glider or two.

He reached cruising altitude and leveled off, flipping the radio from the local control tower to the regional emergency/information channel. The buzz of it, and the thrum of the plane, lulled him into a mood not dissimilar to the ones he would get in during long cross-country or trans-Atlantic/Pacific ones, twenty years ago. There was nothing but him, the controls, and open sky to the edge of the world. Freedom calling him at several miles above the earth.

He played around a little - dipping and doing minor maneuvers he remembered from flight school. As the initial contentment at once more being up in the sky faded, slow annoyance, tempered by degrees of fear, respect, and awe, stewed for the next few hours. He could look at it one of two ways, this stunt Jarod had pulled. Either Jarod was reckless and stupid, willing to risk both their lives on some half-formed hunch, or he knew something. He had found something real and concrete on which to base his rash actions upon. If he had known, then why the desire to have Jon spill his hand - he already knew it. Perhaps Jarod wanted him to know that he knew. Maybe he had hooked up with a daredevil idiot.

Jon treated Jarod to a venomous glare when he once more clambered in from behind the pilot seats. He signaled for Jarod to put on the headphones, which he was already involved in doing. When he had them on and tuned, Jon shouted, as loud as he could into the mouthpiece, “What the HELL do you think you were doing?!”

Jarod looked at him, nonplused. “What?”

“Don’t you ‘what’ me like that!” Jon continued his tirade. “We could have gotten killed! What the hell was that?”

“We weren’t in any danger. You have the knowledge of a fully certified small crafts pilot.” He responded, as though it was something everyone knew, while he switched the controls to him once more.

“What are you talking about?” Jon asked, continuing to be Quite Annoyed with the situation.

Jarod looked at him as though to say, “What?” but instead said, “I was thinking you might like to fly a bit, and I hadn’t slept in 72 hours.” Jarod replied as though Jon had asked what the weather was looking like. “There’s snacks in the back. We should be a bit now.”

Having been dismissed from the front of the aircraft, and having little desire to continue this argument where he couldn’t adequately haul back and hit his partner in crime, Jon clambered into the back, where a tube of Pringles and a Coke sat waiting for him. At least he had measurably greater confidence in Jarod, upon his evasion to answering his few questions. An advantage of having a juvenile body? He looked appreciatively at the Coke. He could eat like a kid again, without any fancy heartburn or indigestion medicine!

He stretched out as best he could in the two rear seats, and popped Pringles into his mouth, contemplating how Jarod had come upon knowledge about him. Probably not directly through the SGC. Things were kept relatively tight there, and Hammond had made it abundantly clear that his records had been destroyed upon his decision to reenter society. So since physical reportes would be lacking, that left word of mouth. None of his ex-team would rat him out, and any of the airmen involved wouldn’t either, if they held a hope in the world of getting on an off-world team. Frasier and the nurses - he reserved a few seconds of fond thought for the nurses - wouldn’t either. Frasier had, though, sent away for tests. Those BASTARDS! That was the only time in which the information could have, in whole or in part, gotten out. Jon fumed with his Pringles.

However, in order to have found that information, Jarod would have had to have a hypothesis - a hint of what was going on. Though many of the experiences and claims Jarod had made upon their first meeting had sounded outlandish and overblown, more and more he was beginning to believe that everything the outwardly forthright man had said, was in fact, true.

He may not have slept, but he lay back in a half-dazed trance of deep thought. It was more his way of processing things - sitting back and just musing, then was Daniel’s frenetic scribbling, or Sam’s chalk-board diagrams. Carter had walked in on him in his office several times, leaned back as far as the base of his chair would allow, and thought he was dozing or day dreaming, and had often chided him for the perceived slacking off. Any slacking he might or might not have done would more then have been made up for by Carter and Daniel. And Jonas when he was here.

Around then they began descent. Jon shook himself from thought and squeezed back into the co-pilot seat. Jarod appeared to be enjoying the flight, staring out the windshield with a Jonas-like smile on his face. “Enjoying yourself?” Jon asked, staring out the window as well.

“Immensely!” Jarod replied, not taking his eyes from the open sky. “The simple physics working against the wings of the aircraft so often seem little-able to support the entire craft, let alone people and luggage. Yet the high/low pressure differentials combined with our forward motion is more then sufficent.”

“Yup.” Jon agreed.


	9. Negotiations

Negotiations - Where there’s a will there’s an or  
\---

Magnets. He had worked out how Jarod had gotten everything working for them like clockwork. Magnets. Okay, okay, he knew that wasn’t it, but without a team of personal assistants, Jon couldn’t figure how he’d worked everything out so perfectly.

They’d landed and caught a taxi outside of the airport to drive almost an hour to a squatting concrete complex. It spread over rural land, normally dry and brown but now green and sprouting from the winter rains.

A stylized “HICM” along with a logo made mostly of lines and squiggles sat in a concrete block the size of a park bench, at the entry walkway. Jard paid and went to lean against the marker in order to better fish through his bag. From it he pulled out a sport coat, which he managed shake free of wrinkles. He put it on over his t-shirt, followed by a pair of wire-rim glasses. Jarod shook himself ever so slightly, and in a few moments his posture and bearing had changed so he was whoever it was he needed to be for this meeting.

The receptionist’s desk was untended, and the entire building had the look of places which are inhabited, but have been recently neglected in favor of something more important then house cleaning, or turning on the heat. Unphazed by the untended entrance, Jarod simply jumped over the desk, and chose one button out of a bank lined up for the non-existent receptionist. He pushed it twice, and waited in an unhurried, energetic manner.

A hurried reply came through the intercom system. “Yes?”

“Dan?”

“Yes?” Was the rather irritated response.

“Dan, this is Jarod DuPont.”

If Jon had been feeling anthropomorphic, he would have classified the notable moments of silence as ‘stunned’ or perhaps, ‘poleaxed’. “Jarod?” Dan replied, sounding as though he were truly paying attention to the intercom, now. “I’ll be out in a sec.”

A confused man wandered out from a side door, brightening at the sight of Jarod (while completely ignoring Jon) and offering a hand for vigorous shaking. “Wow, Jarod. I never got a chance to say thanks. I got worried when you just disappeared - especially after the... Well things got to changing pretty quickly. I guess you knew.” He finished.

Jarod grinned, “How’s the family?”

Dan smiled, as though they were sharing an in joke, “Good. Better. We’re all doing better now.”

“I did have to leave abruptly. I got a call, and then a few offers I couldn’t say no to, and... well, it’s been busy. Always off to a new thing.” Jarod supplied for the conversation, with a wolfish grin.

“It’s good to hear you’ve kept busy.” Dan led them into a passcard-protected door. “So what brings you here?” He asked, proceeding them through concrete hallways which reminded Jon of the SGC.

“Actually, we’re here on business. I hear you’ve been doing well in the private sector. Downright prospering for a startup company.”

“There’s always messes to clean up. The more advanced we get, the more advanced we need to think to clean up the messes we make. A few good contracts came our way after the split. Have you heard about our new design?”

“No.” Jarod responded, as though he were interested in hearing about it now, though.

Swiping his passcard in an absent gesture which told Jon he did it all the time, Dan opened his office door and ushered them in. “If it gets approved by Environmental Protection it should be good to store everything from black water to toxic chemicals to radioactive materials. Everyone’s gone because we’ve been involved in presentations for the past week or so. Big thing if it gets approved, but you know how things can be.”

The only indication that the room they were in was an office was the name plate (Dan Healy, Director of Operations) set down under a pile of paperwork which was engaged in sliding off of the desk. Documents, file folders, correspondences, and what looked like four solid feet of doctoral theses covered the room in the way that those who insist they have a filing system which you could never understand, cover their work spaces. The only cleared portion of the room (a patch of floor directly in front of the desk) contained an oddly formed barrel, squatting like a potential investor in the office. An equally oddly formed lid rested against a wall.

Jarod immediately locked onto it, and began examining it, inside and out while firing questions at Dan, who seemed as exuberant regarding the odd barrel as Jarod.

“It’ll be approved. Truly an ingenious design.” Jarod praised, concluding his examination of the object.

“Business.” Dan suggested.

“Business.” Jarod confirmed. They were sat in a pair of chairs excavated from under notebooks and overflowing manila envelopes. The odd thing about the entire exchange was that Dan didn’t seem to notice that Jon was a 16 year old kid, or that Jarod was wearing a t-shirt indicating facts about the ninja. (1. Ninjas are mammals. 2. Ninjas fight, ALL THE TIME)

In a calm way, Jarod explained that he was now working with the government, and they would be requiring for a large project an outside contract for hazardous waste disposal, as those the government had immediately available were too specialized. “We’re not sure what we’re going to find in there, and it’s not going to be an easy job, but it should be well subsidized, and you’ll have backing should you need it.”

“And you want me why?” Dan asked after a moment of careful consideration.

“This needs to be a discreet operation. And it could be anything. Or a variety of anythings. You’re experienced in them all. I’d trust you with this more than other people.”

Dan didn’t look entirely satisfied by this answer, but nodded as though he understood something deeper Jarod was telling him. They parted that afternoon, not with a resounding yes, but with a tentative, “I’ll think about it and get back to you.”

“That didn’t go as well as it could have.”

“He’s a cautious man. Now.” Jarod shrugged. “He’ll say yes.”

“You’re awful sure.”

“I know people.”

\---

Jack stood in a conference room. A large oval table took up the majority of the floor space reminding him remarkably of the SGC. Area 51 and the SGC must have had the same interior decorator. A complex machine reminiscent of something the Tok’ra or Asgard would create sat on a filing cabinet in one corner. As Jack had the habit of doing, he investigated it, eventually reaching out a finger to poke it gingerly.

On cue the door popped open admitting a pencil-necked fellow who didn’t look over 25. “Would you like a cup?” He asked politely while playing a pencil back and forth between his hands.

“What?”

“You were looking at our coffee machine.” The young man had a slight accent Jack couldn’t place, and the waver of someone perpetually involved in computer simulations and only recently put into a public speaking position.  
“No.” Jack responded, removing his finger from the coffee maker and redirecting his attention with a question. “Who are you?”

“Oh, right. Doctor Jamal Burke. Director of Research.” He offered his hand with a broad smile.

“Wait. You’re the-“ Jack paused. “What?”

“Doctor Jamal Burke.” He reiterated, blushing. “Doctor Redmond was killed during routine testing of a module for the X-303 two months ago.”

“Wasn’t really routine then.” Jack commented.

Dr. Burke looked to his feet and dropped his hand. “I suppose not.”

Then followed an uncomfortable pause. “Oh, right. General O’Neill.” Jack offered his hand, which was taken with a bewildered look.

“Would you like a seat?” He offered, taking one seemingly for the support it would provide. Jack took one on the long side of the oval, staring intently at a watercolor placed opposite him on the wall. “Now. They weren’t exactly clear about what this was about... Major Davis has already been through to talk with us. We’ve given our full support.”

“Yeah, about that...” Jack trailed off to stare at his hands. “See, Davis got the okay from you for storage and investigation of whatever it is we find.” Burke nodded in agreement. “I am here to tell you, in no uncertain terms, that if you try to take advantage of any of the people we recover in this operation - if I so much as hear a rumor of anything-“ Jack’s hands wandered about in an indefinable fashion as though trying to find the right word for his brain. “-hinky, I will bring this place down.” 

Burke paled noticeably. “I’m here to tell you to keep your people in check and under close watch, okay?” He finished with a bright, boyish smile. Burke tried to speak, but succeeded only in nodding vigorously. Jack put a kindlier note in his voice, “I know you’re just a scientist - they probably elected you in some board of regency meeting or something-“

“Scientific Review Board.”

“-yeah, whatever. But our two programs work closely together, and I require your agreement in this.”

“Yes sir, of course.” Burke agreed.

“Good then. That’s it.” Jack utilized another grin to catch Burke off guard, shook his hand, and strode out of the conference room.


	10. Experiential Wisdom

Experiential Wisdom - Time for another Deep Thought  
\---

Jarod flew in silent thought. Jon had retired to the back of the plane, claiming tiredness in order to sulk. Outside Dan Healy’s establishment he had barely managed to head off a major confrontation with his partner. The often volatile and sometimes frighteningly clinical teenager he found himself in the company of made him think about what might have caused such a person to exist.

~ “He’s having a nightmare, Sidney.”

“Yes, he is.”

“Why do people have nightmares?” ~ Jarod was re-watching an old sim in his mind’s eye.

~ “It is believed largely we sleep and dream in order that we might organize our thoughts and memories. In sleep, the unique status of our bodies allow our cells to code RNA strands. These, in conjunction with information stored in our brains make up our memories. Without sleep we would not be able to properly function. Dreams are simply a byproduct of sleep.”

“That’s dreams, though. Why do we have nightmares?” the young Jarod asked. ~ This was from when he was very young. Less then a year in the program.

~ “We, Jarod?” Sidney asked, speculatively. The young Jarod merely continued to look questioningly at his mentor. “Bad experiences. Terrible memories. Guilt or irrational fears. Any number of things can cause nightmares, Jarod.”

“Why do THEY have nightmares?” he asked, staring fixedly at the film strip of a room of children, whimpering and cringing away from something, almost in unison. ~

He doubted he would get Jon to admit it to him, but Jon had been tested on by the government, or the Centre, or most likely the military. Advancements in DNA and RNA research had been coming one on top of the other in the past few years. More and more since Jarod had been in the Centre, evidence began supporting RNA as a larger contributing factor to skills and ability retention than any storage within the brain tissues. It explained such phenomenon as professionals with serious brain damage still recalling how to correctly and safely operate power tools, or drive a car, even when simple things like their names had escaped them.

Jon had been someone’s lab rat. He’d been used for human testing of these RNA theories, Jarod would bet. Theories which, previous to Jon, had been tested only on lower-level mammals. From his demeanor and skill set, Jarod would guess he’d been tested with an RNA introduction from someone with military experience - most likely from the Air Force.

The kid may not even remember a lot of his history as a result of the experimentation - only what whoever had kept him had supplied him as a brief background and cover story. That would explain his almost violent reaction to the challenge of his at times questionable background. If he really didn’t have any other past that he remembered, it would create all sorts of unanswerable questions for him.

His suspicions had been if not confirmed, at least substantiated, upon talking to a lab technician in Cincinnati about some top-secret, has-to-be-done-yesterday DNA work ups from a few months back, sent through his department. The reasons for Jon to be released into the general population were still hazy, but the innate cruelty of it did not escape him.

In many ways, Jarod empathized with this abused teenager. Either brought up by the military, or in some private lab, or kidnaped from the normal, sensible world, things had only gotten worse. Injected with all the knowledge and skill set of a military officer, probably special forces, and no doubt held and tested for some indeterminate period of time, only to be dropped into the world of High School with a stipend and a flimsy background as his only help.

Thinking upon it, perhaps it hadn’t been the kindest thing to do - forcing Jon to take the controls of their plane. There were probably things he could do that he didn’t even know he could do. And indubitably whoever had kept him had used similar tactics in order to encourage the emergence of useful talents.

Still, he had the drive to convince Jon that he, Jarod, knew he was more capable then he looked, lest he do something stupid and reckless later on - something in an uncontrolled situation - which could cause both them and bystanders harm. The object in it had not been to traumatize Jon, but rather to show him he was not alone in this strange set of circumstances in order that he would act reasonable in the future.

And yet Jon had seemed, rather then resentful or shy or even reluctant about his abilities, to revel in them. It was not as though he were biting into a Twinkie for the first time - not sure of what to expected, good or bad - but rather that he had been long deprived of their rich decadence and once reunited intended to enjoy every sweet bite.

As Jarod had often in his early days been afraid of getting into the personality a pretend required, and later, afraid of what would be inflicted on him for the sake of the Pretend, this attitude was foreign. Yes, he ran into instances in which he enjoyed his abilities to Pretend, but in every one of them it was as though he set himself farther and farther apart from humanity, whereas Jon viewed his abilities more as tools to be used and put away once more upon completion of a job.

By discovering more on Jon's particular situation, perhaps he could take some of the attitudes and insights gained into his own situation to help him understand his feelings regarding the Pretends he'd undergone. Sidney had kept a watch on him in a traditional psychiatric way, and had often gone above and beyond his job requirements to help him through things, but very rarely had he shown empathy. His job had been to push Jarod as far as his mind would allow.

In some ways, he was grateful to Sidney. He was in a twisted way, his only protection from the world in his early years in the Centre. Sidney had pushed him to strive for things, and had taught him to ignore pain or fear or any discomforts the world might put in front of him in pursuit of a goal. Only through attaining goals - finishing simulations - had he been released from their confines. Only at the prospect of breaking their star Pretender had the Centre allowed a release of pressures on him.

But in other more primal ways, Sidney had been the cause of his pain and stress - the instigator of many of the traumatic situations in his young life. True, he had also been a teacher and an interesting person from which to get interesting information, but often that information came at the price of hours or days of torturous work. No doubt he would have to sort out his feelings on these subjects in the following weeks, as he fully expected to capture his old mentor in their plan of action.


	11. Fate vs. Determination

Fate vs. Determination - Never run with scissors  
\---

They stayed that night in an actual hotel in Deerfield, a suburb of Chicago. They had an early meeting with one of the men Jarod knew with the Regional Infectious Disease Administration in Skokie. Jon found himself completely exhausted by the past few days’ travel. The exhaustion didn’t simply stem from their nearly constant travel and the mental stresses involved with orchestrating such a massive plan, but also from having to do it with Jarod.

Daniel, Carter, Jonas, and even Teal’c could be difficult and tiring at times, to try to communicate with, but Jarod was easily as bad as if they had all been combined to create some exhausting creature of massive intellect and questionable social skills. It wasn’t so much that Jarod was difficult to understand, but that he couldn’t be fathomed.

Each time they discussed their plans it was like Jarod was absorbing his energies as well as his input. He had to keep up his persona - constantly shoring up the walls between the Jack O’Neill and Jon, the person he knew he had to be for the sake of his sanity and safety.

Just being in close proximity to Jarod’s disturbingly innocent, child-like take on life tended to bring him into the same frame of mind. He had begun taking the simple joys of life as they came, and leaving setbacks in the back of his mind for later consideration. He had found himself in this state only rarely in the past few months. On the one hand, he felt more relaxed then he had - more hopeful and optimistic. But on the other, this grabbing life thing was exhausting.

He was glad to be laying his head down on a Motel 6 pillow which was marginally his, though, and he was even happier for a normal hot shower and bowl of corn flakes in the morning. Jarod didn’t seem able to sleep more than a couple of hours in a row, so he woke Jon a few times in the night, muttering to himself at the computer or entering and exiting the room on trips to the vending machines.

Jon flew them, after their meeting in Skokie (which was boring enough Jon didn’t want to think about it) to a smallish airport in Maryland. The drive to their headquarters-to-be was uneventful, leaving them outside a small, cottage-y house with a wide garden which stretched out around the sides, and beyond in the back.

The house, upon their entrance, was dirty in the way which places long abandoned by humanity were. Jarod put a hand on Jon’s chest at their entrance to stop him moving forward. “They never found this one. It’s still rigged. Wait here until I tell you.” Jarod side-stepped out of the entry way and could be heard banging about in the back of the house.

“Wait, rigged?! With what?” Jon shouted after him, but got no response. He waited. “Hey, how long should I wait here?”

“The front room is safe now. You can put your things up stairs.” was the reply from the rear rooms of the house. It was decorated in a Colonial style with neat woodwork and wallpapers. Wide oak stairs led to the second floor. Pictures of people Jon (and he would have bet Jarod) couldn’t identify lined the walls and sat on doily’d tables.

Turning into the first door, Jon was stopped dead in his tracks. A massive, heavy wooden table took up most of the floor space. On top of it was what looked like an entire tarot deck laid out on it in a complex pattern with Polaroids substituting for some of the cards. The rest of the room was taken up by a padded armchair positioned to allow easy perusal of the table, and book shelves lined with titles like Prognostication for the Layman or An introduction to historic card reading forms. The whole room looked as though not even a breeze had disturbed it from its careful presentation however-long ago.

Jarod was definitely unhinged in some respects. Removing himself from the room, Jon found the next room to be a normal bedroom complete with neat, if dusty sheets on a single bed. Dropping his things next to the bed, Jon returned downstairs.

“What is this place?” He asked Jarod as he strode by, a pair of wire cutters brandished towards the wall.

“Sidney calls them Lairs. They’re places where I’ve carried out a Pretend. This one I thought would be discovered, so I set it up expecting them.” Jon had followed Jarod out to the gardening shed which was rumbling thunderously. Grinning wolfishly, “They would have been here a good while too.” He added regretfully, flipping a massive switch and playing with a sychrometer. “At least until these ran out of diesel.” The thunder of the generators housed within the garden shed wound down with moans and squeals. “This is good though. Just the sort of place we need for the moment.”

“What exactly were you doing here?” Jarod had disappeared between the still hot generators, wire cutters leading the way.

“I was a psychic working for the Police in relation to a few missing persons’ cases.”

“You were a what?”

“Technically Angelo was the one giving me a lot of the information, but the study of ancient prognostication methods-“

“Wait, what?”

“-means in which to tell the future, were quite fascinating. Relying upon investigation of the entrails of ritualistically killed animals, or the visions of those intoxicated by various hallucinogenic compounds for insights into the future...”

“Do you believe in that... Mystic stuff?”

One of the generators powered up once more drowning out any possible response. Jarod reappeared from behind the machinery and ushered Jon out of the garden shed.

“Did you ever, you know... with the chickens?”

Jarod grinned in a highly amused manner. “You mean kill them for the purpose of reading their entrails?”

“Yeah, that.”

“No. I found the Cards much more to my liking.” They returned to the house, Jarod in order to hook up his laptop, Jon to examine some of the plans Jarod had drafted for him.

Sometime later while going to find a bottle of Coke he was quite sure he had left in his backpack, he was stopped by the sight of Jarod sitting in the Card Room staring at the carefully laid out deck.

Much as his fully grown counterpart would have wandered into Carter’s lab, or Daniel’s office to poke around and cause trouble, he wandered into the room, but unlike his counterpart, silently watched his partner poring over the arrangement.

After a minute, “What’cha doing?”

“This was meant as an experiment to test the validity of a relation-based universe - versus a chance based universe which I’ve previously investigated - however so much relies upon interpretation, it proved impossible to say with any definitiveness as to its validity or lack.”

“So you’re undecided.” Jon concluded.

“I didn’t say that.” Jarod chided. “But some things you can’t be definitive about. The philosophy indicates a belief in great connections between the universe and the elements within, and faith in the human ability to tap into a greater truth in the universe while correctly interpreting it.

Jon moved to lean against a wall inside the room. “So you believe in this great meaning of the Universe?” Jon asked, sarcasm having mutated into philosophy.

“If I know empathics and precognitives - with all the things I know are possible in the world, it brings the impossible into question.

“So you’re saying the course of things is already set out?”

Jarod looked up from the table to Jon for the first time in the conversation. “I don’t know.” He sed with a genuine smile. “That’s what makes things fun.”

This guy is crazy, Jon thought as he left in search of his errant Coke.


	12. Action/Reaction

Action/Reaction - Above board my cute little ass  
\---

Jarod remained in the card room as though in deep contemplation. Jon would look in on his companion, popping his head in and back out again silently. Instinctually he knew these fits of deep thought and reclusive behavior were usual - he would isolate himself from stimulus in order to process things as a sort of substitute for normal sleep. From such an unusual upbringing and following expulsion into the world, he had had to develop a coping mechanism from going to such a brutal but secluded life to the sensory bombardment society considered normal.

Therefore, he wasn’t surprised when, while on the phone with his aged counterpart, Jarod began bustling about in one of the spare rooms and the kitchen. He had changed into casual clothing - jeans and a denim jacket - and was about to leave the house when Jon stopped him. “Wait, wait, wait. Where do you think you’re off to?” He asked.

“I have to do a favor for a friend in relation to our project.” He replied simply. “I shouldn’t be more then a couple of hours.

“Okay. Don’t get lost.”

\---  
He arrived at the grade school around ten to three. Jarod glanced t the waiting parents, older siblings, and babysitters assembled waiting to collect their miniature charges. He wasn’t so out of place if one just glanced over him. Once more he looked at the palmed photo. Debbie Broots was cute, in a precocious little girl way.

A bell rang and little waist and chest high children flooded out. He picked her from the crowd, looking around at those waiting. Approaching her, “Debbie?” She glanced at him suspiciously. “I’m Jarod. Broots sent me to pick you up.” She looked at him harder. “He says he’s sorry he couldn’t make it, but he loves you and will come get you when he can.” Her glare turned to a concerted pout. Jarod had arranged to have a note sent to Debbie’s teacher, so she would be told her daddy wouldn’t be able to pick her up. It had been ridiculously easy, and had ensured he wouldn’t have to deal with a suspicious pre-teen. As far as Broots would know, his daughter had to stay after school for an emergency Music Practice. “Would you like to get some ice cream?” He asked finally.

“Dad doesn’t let me have ice cream until after dinner.” She replied solemnly.

“It’s a good thing you’re with me, then.” He told her with a mischievous grin. They walked to the car he had found - an old mustang - and got in.

“I like your car.” She told him. An army of bobble heads sat on the dash, along with a hula-girl band (ukahlalee, tambourine, and vocal) and multi-colored tie-dye mats.

“Why thank you. A friend of mine makes tie-dyed items. We could make something later were you interested.” He offered.

Debbie nodded, “That would be fun.”

They drove back to their staging house. “What do you do Mr. Jarod?” She asked, peering over the rim of a large blue bowl of Rocky Road. They had been conversing in the car about her day at school.

“It’s just Jarod.” He told her, smiling. Chocolate AND nuts AND marshmallows were a innovative combination of flavors.

“What do you do, Jarod?” She asked once more.

“All sorts of different things. What do YOU think I do?”

She thought carefully for a moment, eyes roving the room for clues. “Do you work with computers?” She guessed finally. Her dad worked with computers, and it was a fair guess that her dad’s friend would do the same.

“Sometimes.”

“Are you a doctor?”

“Yes.”

“Well you’re a doctor who sometimes works with computers.”

“What else do you think I could be?”

“A lawyer. Or a cook. Or a janitor. Or a teacher. Or a vagabond.”

“Vagabond. Now that’s a very odd profession.”

“A vagabond is someone who goes from place to place without a home.” She informed him in a manner that told him it had somehow come up in class at one point.

“I am a vagabond then.” He replied firmly. “What do you want to be?”

“Happy.” She told him, looking through his eyes into some deep place in his soul, before getting up and depositing her now empty dish in the sink. “Do you have a yard?” She asked, her back to Jarod. People were harder to read from the back.

“I do, but it’s very cold and muddy outside right now. But I have lots of books upstairs if you would like to read one. Or if you’d like to watch a film, I’ve found a wonderful one about a young deer coming into his own in the Great Forest.”

“Bambie?”

“You’ve seen it!”

Debbie looked at him as though he were crazy.

\---

“Hey Jarod, I just got news from Davis. We got an okay from- are you watching Bambie again? Could we at least switch to Aladdin or something?” He stopped, seeing Debbie for the first time. “Hell-o” he drawled.

“Hi.” She replied shyly.

“What’s your name?” Jon’s fatherly instincts perked up.

She looked at him as though weighing if he were a kidnapper or not. Not that she wasn’t already kidnaped, but she didn’t know that. “Debbie.”

Jarod clattered down the stairs and smiled upon seeing them talking. “I see you’ve met.”  
“Not actually. I’m Jon.” Looking from Jarod to Debbie and to Jarod again, “Can I talk to you in the kitchen for a moment?” In an overly calm whisper. “Who is that?” Any sarcastic or clever twist of phrase he might normally have come up with deserted him.

“I’m doing a favor for a friend - taking care of her for a couple days.”

“This is not time do be doing favors which involve kids!” Jon was becoming increasingly alarmed at the idea of a child traveling with them - them who had started their partnership by getting shot at by highly militant, armed men. She didn’t seem dumb or anything, but rather inquisitive in just the wrong ways to be dealing with in their situation.

A thought clicked into Jarod’s head, and his demeanor changed. “She’s the daughter of a programmer working for the Centre.”

“You KIDNAPED her?”

“No! It’s not like that.” Jarod came back equally sincerely. “He’s sympathetic to what I’m trying to do, but she’s been threatened in the past to obtain his compliance. I told him I would personally insure her safety in exchange for his help the day of.”

“You KIDNAPED HER.” Jon Reiterated.

“It’s for her own protection. He’ll agree with it when he finds out about it.”

“Because you have his kid as a hostage!”

“No. Because her safety was the only thing standing between him and a moral decision.”

Disappointed, angry, and confused, Jon re-evaluated his partner. The honest desire to create good things drove him, but his upbringing would show itself in the oddest places. It was as though he’d once gotten a list of things that were good, and things that were evil, and when set loose in the world, he’d gone out with the goal of turning everything evil into something good.

These odd amoral decisions cropped up, which though bizarrely appropriate, were also both illegal and often contained elements of torture. True, Jon realized the benefit of having someone who operated outside the bounds of the law, and he was no longer an officer of the US military, so he also felt little compunction towards complying on the little things, but there were some things which even he, in his questionable history, did not do.

He would have to maintain a close watch on things to be sure Jarod wasn’t tempted to anything overtly cruel. He wasn’t against a little revenge, but anything which could compromise their project he wouldn’t tolerate.

Jarod could see his partner thinking, and finally added quietly, “She shouldn’t know.”

“Damned straight she won’t know.” Jon replied vehemently. “No kid should have the weight of that on them.”

“So you’ll help?”

“We can’t really return her now. What are we going to do with her the day of?”

“I’ve got that covered. Beyond living with us until then, she shouldn’t be any trouble to you.”

“Well then. I got work to do.” With that, Jon left the kitchen, while Jarod stared at the space in which he had been leaning. This was a learning experience for them both.

\---

To: User = Broots  
From: WhiteRabbit@lycos.com  
Re: When is your important date?  
Message:  
Dear Mister Broots,  
I have the pleasure of hosting your offspring for a few days. In order that she might be returned safely, I require some help on a minor technical matter in the following days...  
...to assure she is safely kept. We should be calling at 9 PM today. She doesn’t know the circumstances of her condition. I’m sure you’d like to keep her in the dark regarding this.  
Yours (if you can catch me)  
The White Rabbit

Broots wasn’t often a brave man, but he was competent in most matters, a genius with computers, and an overprotective if, perhaps absent-minded father. He would do as suggested.

Jarod shot off another quick e-mail to Sidney with only four words in it - “Refuge is coming home”. Refuge used to be the word Jarod could use to stop a simulation. After he was taken from under Sidney’s care, it had no longer worked, but he had little doubt Sidney would catch his meaning.

Debbie really wasn’t much trouble. She needed to be entertained, but no more then any other child. She talked with her father, a man called only by his last name - Broots. She explained how Jarod had showed her how to tie dye a tablecloth, and Jon had played cards with her.

 

Planning went on as... planned, though things had been mostly worked out at that point. An outpost a mile and a half from the Centre had been picked out, and operations for personnel retrieval had been set down. Things rolled along, surprisingly, much as they expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't honestly know who has whiterabbit@lycos.com, but I'm sure they'd be appreciative if they NOT recieve odd e-mails from people. Just a thought.


	13. Mistaken Identities

Mistaken Identities - You did WHAT with my credit card?!  
\---

Arriving on the site around 8 AM - Jarod going to meet with the technicians under his control, Jon to go talk with the SG teams already assembled. His reception was cool, but more in an uncomfortable, unsure way then from being actively hostile. He’d been gone from Stargate Command for months. Some of them hadn’t even known about him at the time - others had been ordered to forget him.

Aside from his one memorable meeting with trainees on Deathgliders 101, he hadn’t had anything to do with the SGC since his miniaturization. And now he was back, and in an odd way, in command of a number of aspects of this operation. They knew from the General that he had devised much of the infiltration planning, and he was responsible for their involvement, in particular.

He was an island amongst them, putting on the gear someone had provided for him, until Carter spotted him. “Jon.” She greeted him.

“Colonel.” He returned. “I never got to congratulate you.” He offered a hand, which she accepted, and gave her a brotherly peck on the cheek. He knew that particular ship had sailed, and he had gotten over it. Mostly.

Carter was grinning in her unique, goofy way, in contrast to their last parting. “Daniel told me about your reaction when you heard...”

“I meant it.” They stood in a more companionable silence. “So where’s the General?”

“He’s lias-ing with the- you meant Jack didn’t you...”

“Yeah.”

“The command tent.”

\---

Jon, ironically enough, got distracted by weaponry on the way to the tent, and ended up talking with a Lieutenant he’d gotten to know over a year ago now about the changes in the SGC. Jarod, however, went in to meet with Jack for the first time.

Sitting at one of the laptops, chewing absently on the end of a pencil (Jack had learned long ago the danger of chewing on pens), he was interrupted by Jarod looming over him. “General, I had been wanting to have a word with you.” He informed Jack.

Shaking himself out of reverie, he landed all four legs of his chair on the ground and looked up at Jarod. “Yeah, what about?” Was his off-handed response.

“I’d been meaning to ask you - what’s your relationship to Jon?”

Jack’s demeanor barely changed, but in a fraction of a second he went from relaxed to on his guard and ready for anything. “That’s classified.” He enunciated slowly.

“Is that so?” Jarod asked quietly - dangerously. “You tested on him. You used him. You violated his mind.” Jarod growled, taking two steps backwards and leveling a military issue semi-automatic handgun at the General.

Ignoring the threat in his annoyance, Jack stood and shouted, “Hey, you don’t know what I did to him! I saved that kid’s life. It would have been more convenient to let him die, but he didn’t ask for any of this. He didn’t deserve it.”

“What didn’t he ask for?” Jarod barked.

“Classified.” Jack barked back.

“You had no right to do that to him.”

“Like hell I didn’t! I didn’t ask for this to happen either, but I wouldn’t let him die. You would have done the same thing.” Since neither of them quite knew to what the other was referring, Jarod didn’t know that he had in fact acted similarly in the rescue of his own clone some months earlier. “Now are you going to quit pointing that gun at me, or is Carter going to have to kick your ass?”

An attention getting cough acted as it was intended, causing Jarod to turn and drop his gun. Carter was looking embarrassed. “I, ah, needed to look at the blueprints again.” She said as way of explanation.

“That’s fine Colonel.” Jack told her, turning his chair around so he could sit while facing Jarod, who was looking conflicted.

“I’ll just-“ Carter got the rolled sheets, exchanging a series of looks with the General by which she ascertained that he had the situation under control.

When she had left, Jack stood in one menacing movement, “Now I don’t care what you’ve found, or think you’ve found, or made up in your crazy head, but if you EVER-“ Jack went from calmly reasonable to full-on drill Sargent bellow, “-try anything like that again, I will PERSONALLY see you don’t make it out the door in one piece. DO YOU HEAR ME?”

Jarod straightened to glare at Jack, who was now invading his personal space. “Now I appreciate-“ Jack spit the word with a dose of venomous sarcasm, “-that you want to protect him because he’s cute and put upon, and I also appreciate that you’re not actually in the military. But I will tolerate no subordination in this operation. You will do your computer stuff, ad you will act in an advisory position, but I will not have you POINTING a GUN at me.” Jack finished, sounding as though he were disappointed in Jarod. “Jon’s a little weird, but he has never been mistreated more then any teenager.”

They were of a height - Jack and Jarod - and until that moment, had been staring at one another like two feral dogs. Jack broke it off and returned to his folding chair. Beyond being incensed, the General hadn’t indicated he was telling anything but the absolute truth. This revelation confused Jarod, but assured him of the moral standing of those he would be relying on to carry out their plan.

“Then I’ve misjudged things and I apologize.” Jack nodded regally, indicating by the action that it was something fully due him. “You will of course have my full support in all operations.”

“That’s good to hear. Go to it. You have 22 minutes.”

Jarod left Jack to sit and contemplate. Carter returned a few minutes later, vest on and rifle clipped on its shoulder strap. “Jon’s ready. SG-15 and 9 as well as the marines.” Jack acknowledged her information. “Is everything-“ She glanced to the tent flap, “-all right?”

“Oh yeah. Just getting to know one another.”

“We could hear you thirty yards away.”

“Yeah. It’s a guy thing.”

Carter ducked her head to hide her grin, “Will he be any trouble?”

“Naw. I think we got it worked out.”

“Yessir.” She turned to leave.

“Carter?” She tuned. “Be careful. Listen to Jon, but remember - you’re the one in command. He’ll understand.”

He looked ridiculous. He felt tired. He was about to jump into a life-threatening situation, but damn did it feel good to have a P-90 tucked under his arm again. Carter looked him over and shot a small smile at him. “You feeling ready?”

“I’m feeling good, considering the circumstances.” He shrugged, readjusting his vest in the same motion. The military didn’t make ‘growing teenager’ size. Though they had managed to outfit Hailey, he mused.

Sam chewed her bottom lip in a nervous gesture. “This is weird.”

“We’ve dealt with weirder. I wouldn’t have had you as my 2IC if I wouldn’t have wanted you getting a command. Just...” He caught her gaze and held it. “...remember who I used to be.”

She ducked her head, clamping down hard on her lip to keep a straight face. “Yessir.” Jon gave her a fond look, and moved off to talk with Teal’c.

“Hey T.”

“Greetings once again my friend.”

“You feeling good?” He asked, rolling lightly to the balls of his feet.

“Indeed I am.” He paused for a minute.

“You gonna be okay with this?”

“Indeed I am. Often within the ranks of the Jaffa, individuals of youthful visage will rise to command armies of thousands. The nature of the restorative properties of the symbiotes has long proven that appearances may be deceitful. You have proven your competence and judgement in many matters. Besides-“ A broad grin spread across his face, “-Colonel Carter is in command of this mission.” He teased Jon.

Jack stepped out of the tent. “All right. Let’s move it out kids. You know what you have to do. Don’t get killed. Be careful. Remember - we got civilians and kids in there. We’ll be right behind you. Good luck.”


	14. Techno Battle

Techno Battle - Like techno babble but with guns  
\---

“You’ll have access now.” Jarod told the man he was on the phone with - a Mr. Tambershack whom Mr. Morgan had lined up to help with their ‘money transfers’. The complications of the first stage were draining funds while shutting down the facility, at the same time. But Walters was typing away busily, directing some of Jarod’s programming to help hack into the systems and set off false alarms throughout the buildings.

“I have it. Beginning dispersal of funds.” Mr. Tambershack acknowledged, sounding pleased.

“Great. I think you can handle things from here.” Jarod replied, switching his headset to receive input from the infiltration teams, and turning his monitor to the various schematics and control programs within the Centre which Walters had compiled for this purpose.

“Blocks A through F locked down.” Walters reported much as he reported incoming wormholes.

“I’m into the records archives.” Another technician reported on his other side, sounding surprised.

“Drain everything out that you can get, even if it’s encrypted.”

“Doing it.”

Jarod focused down on the schematics presented him as the first reports from teams were called in.

\---

“What’s wrong, Angelo?” Sidney asked the empath, who had been following him for most of the morning, bumping his fist against his upper lip in a repetitive gesture. His agitation had just jumped to a new level though.

“Take them away. Hide in the dark.” The lights turned out, one or two of them bursting in showers of glass and sparks. The girls following after Sidney turned doe-eyed and stopped, whimpering a bit. Flickering back on, the remaining lights were unsteady in their illumination and the light seemed tainted.

“What’s going on Angleo?” Sidney asked earnestly of him.

“Go. Hide. Go. Hide. Find them all and hide.” Angelo had gone into a quiet frenzy, trying to herd the girls and Sidney down the hallway.

Sidney had learned years ago that though Angelo’s abilities were primarily empathic, some primary instinct drove him into states like this preceding dangerous times. He helped Angelo, taking two of the girls by their hands, and calling to the others, “Come along, now. We have to play hide and seek.”

They perked at that, and followed willingly. Angelo brought them through several corridors, through one of the rooms Jarod used to be housed in which had fallen into disrepair, and finally to a closet-like room at the end of a hallway. “Stay.” Angelo commanded.

Sidney nodded, “We shall. What is this about, Angelo?” He asked, catching Angelo’s eyes.  
“Refuge.” Angelo whispered before closing the door behind him and scuttling out.  
\---

The floor they were on looked like a corporate office, all decorated in beige and grey with calming, abstract oil paintings on the walls. On the one hand, it felt strange to be stalking the innocuous hallways, all the doors locked shut. On the other hand, he’d gotten shot at in this office building foyer, by guys with semi-automatics.

They made a left turn at the end of a hall, and pushed into the emergency exit stairwell. Down and down, farther then a basement or an underground garage, or a basement stacked on top of an underground garage. Carter and Teal’c leapfrogged down the stairwell, guns leading the way. Silent. Smoothly professional, they descended, reaching the bottom. Another few halls and turns and they continued down a rusty metal staircase.

The area they found themselves in was dramatically different from that above them. The walls and floors and ceilings were bare concrete, cracked in places, patched in others and leaking muddy water. Bare pipes, some of them painted, others lead or green-tarnished copper ran along the ceiling and walls.

Jon looked at Daniel as he paced past him. So very different from the bookish man he remembered of almost a decade ago. He recalled how Daniel had come to him several years ago, distraught, and told him he’d gotten home and felt inexplicably naked.

“I finally figured out what it was, Jack. I didn’t have my sidearm.” Now he stalked behind Teal’c, gun grasped lightly, medical kit strapped tightly to his back. Confident and ready, he scanned the hallways in front of them with critical eyes.

Peering in a door hanging open, a wooden chair sat in the corner - lonely - the seat split through the center. A hunched, disheveled figure appeared at the end of the hallway, backlit with yellow light.

“Hold it!” Jon raised his weapon on the person, who immediately cowered in on himself. Teal’c and Daniel pinned him with their guns while Jon moved forward. As he approached, he could hear the wimper, “Find them. Hide them.” He stopped as Jon got close to him, straightening. “Little boy, big man.” He said quietly. Jon stopped, caught by the words and pale blue eyes.

“Yeah, whatever.” The man smiled in a disturbing manner. “You Angelo?”

The man didn’t respond yes or no, but instead grinned widely and turned, reiterating in a more hopeful manner, “Find them.”

“Jon?” Carter asked.

“It’s okay. He’ll help us find people.”

Carter nodded, dubious. They moved off as a team after Angelo, who had already left them behind.

\---  
“Broots.” Parker’s sharp tone brought him up short. “That’s a horrendous shirt.”

He looked at her from the computer, trying to focus blurry, exhausted eyes. “Excuse me?” He asked finally.

“That shirt. The first day it was bad. Yesterday it was ugly. TODAY,” she emphasized the word with the scorn of someone who had forgotten more important days then today, “-it is unbearably horrendous.” Parker grasped the computer chair and spun it around so Broots was facing her - or more accurately - her midriff. She planted her knee (clad only in flesh-colored nylon and a little bit lower, by calve-high four-inch sued heels) in between his legs, on the tiny triangle of desk chair not taken up. Broots took a quick jerk of a breath, as said knee had landed alarmingly close to his privates.

Gripping the back of the chair, she leaned in, dark red lips purring, “Now I haven’t been having you do anything for me. Jarod’s trail went cold after Colorado.” The purr turned into a growl. “So you’re going to tell me who you’ve been working your little tail off for or-“ Sirens, lights, bells and whistles went off, distracting Miss Parker from exactly what she would be doing to her hapless programmer.

Sparks practically flying from her eyes, she withdrew from threatening Broots to menace the doors which had automatically shot and bolted themselves. In a split second, he spun back to his computer, pulled up a window, and entered a few lines of code. Pressing enter, he once more was spun and menaced by Miss Parker.

“What. Did. You. Do?” She hissed slowly.

“Do?” He asked faintly.

“You did this. What did you do?” She barked at him, causing him to jump. “Who put you up to this? Lyle? Briggite?”

“No Miss Parker.” He squeaked in his own defense. “I didn’t do this.”

She glared at him for a further second, nostrils flaring in suppressed fury. As smart as Broots was, he couldn’t lie any better then he could spontaneously take flight. “Jarod.” She concluded, abandoning Broots to stalk the length of the small, cluttered office. He took the moment’s respite to pant out a few breaths. “What are you up to?” She asked Jarod. “Broots. Find out if the rest of the building is locked down. And get me a line out of here.” She ordered, digging in the pockets of her trench for nicotine gum. She only managed to come up with a cigarette.

\---  
Jarod sat at his laptop watching the progression of the flushing-out procedures, and monitoring everything electronically. Abruptly, a red light went off in G block, indicating a fire.

“SG-9, there’s a fire reported in block G3, Corridor 12.”

“Checking it out.” They reported back.

The red light began blinking blue, indicating the sprinklers had successfully activated and had suppressed the fire. SG-9 investigated the room.

“Sprinkler systems have activated. Can you turn them off?”

A minute’s pause followed. “I have two in here. One of them is demanding to talk with a Jarod.”

In the background, Jarod could hear, “-you idiot! Give me that and let me talk to that-“

“Ma’am, step away and put your hands behind your head.”

“Don’t you-“ The regal remonstrances of Miss Parker were clear, followed by the sounds of a scuffle.

“What’s going on Major?”

“Sorry Sir. We had to zat her. She’ll be coming out shortly.”

Jarod chuckled at that, closing off a corridor and opening access to another for SG-15 who were looking through a block of labs. “Make sure she’s not mistreated.”

“I just shot her.”

“Yeah. Make sure she’s not too mistreated then. She has information that could be valuable to us.”

\---

Angelo didn’t seem to need any light or sound cues to find his way, simply stopping at particularly confounding intersections and raising his head in an animalistic movement as though scenting the air for his goal. They reached a door which he stopped at and indicated they should enter. Since their approach was as near to silent as it could be made, they heard whoever it was within grow silent at their approach.

Carter led their investigation of the room. Within it were four or five teenage boys, a middle-aged man wearing only a bath robe, and a flock of variously aged children. A dozen or so of them were behind bars set into the floor and ceiling.

Those sitting outside of the jailed area looked everything from anxious to terrified. A little girl sat next to the man in the bathrobe, hands grasping one of his in a protective manner, expression challenging them all.

“Chas says you’re a prodigal son.” The little girl told Jon, bright, bright blue eyes staring into him.

“Does he now?” Jon replied, time seeming to shrink away into the surreality of the moment.

“Chas says you’ll take us to see the stars and we’ll never see our old beds again.” Jon blinked at a los for words. “He says we’ll get new ones, though. And maybe little stuffed animals.” They stared at one another - Jon thinking furiously but getting nowhere, the little girl’s face completely expressionless.

“What’s your name?”

“Rebecca.” She pronounced the name slowly, as though she had not often had occasion to say it. “This is Chas.” She said, looking up at the bathrobed man who had spent the entire exchange staring unresponsively at the wall. “He’s been my friend since for ever and ever. But he says you’ll be my friend now, Jon.” She smiled with a mouth missing several teeth. At the voicing of his name, the world rushed back upon him. Carter was giving him a funny look, while the girl had returned to looking apprehensive.

“Weird kid.” He commented more to himself then to anyone else.

“Considering this environment, it’s not really surprising.” Daniel commented, holding things for Carter while she set a small charge to blast the lock.

Those sitting behind the bars had done so tamely and without any indication of surprise or fear, or really anything else. When told to, they clustered at the back of the cell, but they hardly flinched when the charge went off, and made no move to exit when the door had been opened.

“Come with us. You will not be harmed.” Teal’c intoned mildly, opening the door the entire way. The children filed out in an orderly line which reminded Jon creepily of the Children of the Corn. Some of them, Jon noticed, had track marks up their arms. Instinctively, Teal’c had hit upon the right mix of firm command and mild reassurance. One of them remained curled on the moist concrete floor.

“He won’t get up anymore.” One of the teenagers commented. “He used to get up, but they stopped coming to fix him. Now he’s too broken to fix.” He finished in a whisper, looking steadily at Angelo.

“His breathing is shallow and pulse is fast. Daniel, Teal’c, take him and the other back up. We’ll reconvene at the second entrance point in twenty minutes.”

“Right.” Daniel responded while Teal’c simply nodded and retrieved the injured child. The teenage boys seemed able to help herd the rest of them, so they began retracing their steps to the surface.

Rebecca and Chas remained seated and distant. “Rebecca, you need to go with them.” Jon told her gently.

“I’m scared.” She admitted.

“Is Chas scared?” He asked, getting exasperated.

“No. He says he wants to see the stars.” She told him as though everyone should have known that.

“Then you don’t need to be scared either. Daniel and Teal’c will take good care of you.”

She looked at him as though judging if he were trustworthy or not, and then rose, tugging the man in the bath robe along after her.

“What was that about?” Carter asked him.

“Hell if I know.” Jon responded, beginning to move down the halls further.

“Well how did you know them?”

“She introduced herself. You were right there.”

“What are you talking about?” She asked, bewildered. As far as she had seen the girl hadn’t spoken until Jon had addressed the girl by name.

“Shhh.” Angelo shushed them, pulling them into a room to their left. A pair of rushed footfalls came and went, accompanied by angry but indistinguishable voices. Angelo was trembling slightly, but calmed when they had passed.

“Daniel, Teal’c. We got at least two bogies in the halls when you’re coming back. Avoid or capture them - I’ll leave it up to you depending on the situation.”

“Whoa.” Jon backed up from the nearest shelves, fumbling for the light. When he finally flipped it, the bright strobing of the light was as startling as what they revealed. Partially formed and grotesquely malformed foetus were stacked floating in formaldehyde solutions. Refrigerators, monitoring equipment, syringes and glassware was set carefully on tabletops further back, as though the scientist had just gotten up for a cup of coffee twenty years ago, never to return. Perhaps that had been the case...

Carter reported it quietly over the radio. All the equipment looked as though it hadn’t been touched recently, and the patterns of dust on the floor were completely undisturbed. Angelo had calmed himself and again moved for the hall.

Carter shot him a look that asked clearly, “What was that?”

Jon shrugged. They were led into a large open area at the bottom of a shaft rising up through several floors. Stairs ran up to the second and third levels where cat walks ran around the periphery and cris crossed the open square. The stairs were rusted through in the middle of each step, though the cat walks seem to have been recently painted and sanded.

The doorway they had walked through had large electronically controlled bolts hanging open. Angelo clambered confidently up one of the staircases, balancing on the edges of each step.

“I think he’s leading us in a circle.” Carter said quietly.

“Yeah.” They didn’t stop at the first set of cat walks, but moved to the second, turning off into an arched hallway.

“Sidney.” Angelo called breathily.

“Yes Angelo? I’m here.” They heard somewhere down the hallway.

“He came.” Angelo declared, grinning.

“Jarod?” He asked, emerging from a side door. Sidney, in person, radiated an electric, forceful sort of personality. Now, at the thought of Jarod back at the Centre - even in such an unorthodox manner - he crackled with energy. “No.” He murmured to himself upon seeing the trio.

“Hold it.” Jon leveled his P-90 at Sidney.

“Put your hands behind your head” Carter ordered.


	15. Gordian Knot

Gordian Knot - Reputedly caused by loose ends  
\---

Area 51 was a buzz with activity. The SGC had reverted to its normal purpose, and the NID it seemed, had been kept out of the loop. Things had... worked. Jack marveled at that simple fact. Whenever he was involved in things, nothing seemed to go right. He had assumed the same would apply to his clone, but apparently, not so much.

He was touring Area 51 and the overflow facility which had been hastily erected to deal with everything they’d confiscated from the Centre. Jarod was walking with him, discussing the various cases in which he had been working with the Area 51 scientists. He had however, tuned out in an inopportune moment.

“You’ve done what now?”

“Set up a care home for some of the less damaged individuals from the Centre. Some of the groups are very attached to one another, and separating them for treatment would only do them damage. I have a Doctor Letham lined up to help with administration and treatment.”

“So, what, one psychologist and twenty or thirty crazy kids with drug addictions, psychic phenomenon, and everything from Stockholm Syndrome to disassociative disorders, not to mention just being kids and teenagers? Where would you even put them all?”

“I have a building in Washington State which is currently being converted and registered as a group home. And it would be Doctor Letham along with an intern she’s been working with, Major Charles who has had some experience with Centre refugees, Sidney, how holds two doctorates in developmental psychology and psychological disorders, and Jon.”

“Jon?”

He has expressed an interest in continuing to work with the refugees. I believes he connects to them on many levels.” Jack gazed deadpan at Jarod, refusing to give anything away. “These people that could be taken on are the very ones that you should be most worried about falling into the wrong hands. They are the most functional of the aberrations the Centre created, and therefore the easiest to use.”

“And yet you would give these kids into the tender care of the guy who kept you AT that place. Who experimented on you.”

Jarod stopped dead. His relationship with Sidney was too complex to explain to an outsider in any reasonable amount of time, and too personal for him to want to. He tried, though, to put it in a nutshell.

“He was under pressure at the time. The reason he stayed on with the Centre was to protect me as much as he could.”

“By abusing you for himself.”

“He tried to protect me!”

“While running experiments on you!”

“It was his only choice.” Jarod responded quietly.

They paused, each combatant going to their figurative corner to regroup. “You trust this guy?”

“With my life.”

“Does Jon trust him?”

“You’d have to ask him.”

Jack nodded at last. “I’ll consider allowing it. I’ll have to see the compound first, though. Make sure it’s adequate.”

Jarod smiled. “Of course. Jon and I should be going there some time next week. You’re welcome to accompany us.”  
\---  
It wasn’t in a good part of town. The yard had been cleared of everything sinister-looking, sharp, pointy, or potentially poisonous. The chain-link fence had been removed and replaced with an imposing but elegant steel one with a massive front gate.

Inside was considerably warmer then Jon remembered the warehouse being. It had been divided into two floors, and the two floors had been further divided into domiciles, counseling rooms, kitchens, and group rooms. A garage had been put in the very back by the rear door, and grass had been seeded. This place would either be the vanguard for restoration of the neighborhood, or a lonely outpost of civilization.

Jon walked through the building, amazed at the change in such a short time. “You must have had guys working 24/7.” He commented.

“Very nearly. The furnishings have not been forthcoming, but it is close to completion.”

“We’d be ready to start moving them in within a few days.” A leggy redhead intercepted them in one of the common rooms. “Doctor Jessica Letham.” She offered a hand to Jack, and then to Jon. “It’s pretty impressive, huh?”

Jon and Jack eyes met, both of them mouthing, “Doctor Letham?” in an exchange of surprise and appreciation. Jon recovered first. “Yeah, real impressive.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.” She responded.

“Oh, I’m Jon. This is General Jack O’Neill.”

“Jon Kempe? The one I’m going to be working with?”

“Yup.” He rocked back on his heels, pleased by being recognized.

“Aren’t you a little...young?”

“I was going to ask the same about you.” Jon countered.

She puffed up much like an agitated cat might. “For your information, I’ve-“

“I’m sure you’re fully qualified, though. As I assure you, I am.” Jon cut her off. Perhaps Jarod had done well in finding someone who shared a modicum of his difficulty.

“How old are you?” She asked, more curious then challenging.

“Six months. Yourself?” He asked cheekily, ignoring the glare Jack was giving him.

“If you wouldn’t tell me you could have just said that.”

Jon smiled, angelically innocent.

\---

“You sure this is what you want to do?” Jack asked his younger counterpart outside the warehouse. Jon was having flashbacks to the first time he and Jack had carried out this discussion. They were on equal footing now, though. He was more of his own person. He was no longer scared witless by his situation. He was prepared to face it. He had a purpose now.

“I can make a difference here. I’m normal compared with most of the people who’ll be in here. Besides, that Doctor...”

“Yeah.” Jack agreed.

“I guess you might as well keep in touch, then. Keep me up to date on the goings and comings.”

“I’ll tell you if anything hinky is going on.” Jon assured him.

“Right then.”

“Right.”

“I’m gonna...” Jack trailed off, moving towards the gate.

“Wait.” Jack turned. “Say ‘hi’ for me.” Jack nodded, and once more was out of his life.

\---

“You could be useful here.”

“Maybe in a while. I have some loose ends to tie up. My work can continue unhindered, now. Don’t worry about me.”

“Wasn’t planning on it.” Jon replied, looking Jarod over. “I’m guessing you’ll disappear and we’ll never see you again.”

“Just about. You know how it is.”

“You ever thought of settling down? You could do it now.”

“I still have a few wrongs to set right. Not to mention the Pretenders to settle. And I have a few leads on family... If you ever need to contact me I’m sure you’ll find a way.”

“You need a place to stash someone, you write. We never use the foldout couch.”

Jarod chuckled. “I’ll remember that. Good luck.” They shook hands, and there wasn’t much else to do or say. Jarod got in his Mustang (he’d decided to keep that one for a while) and drove down the street and around the corner - out of Jon’s life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew - if you finished this let me know 'cause I'm really curious who is still reading Pretender OR Mini!Jack fic at this late date.


End file.
